Coronavirus Concern Interrupts Manhattan Criminal Trial

(Bloomberg) -- A criminal trial in Manhattan was interrupted Thursday when the judge informed lawyers and spectators that a member of the jury pool had been contacted by health authorities about possible exposure to the coronavirus.

U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan said the prospective juror -- who wasn’t selected for the case -- had attended the same synagogue as a person who’s been diagnosed with coronavirus and that the courtroom will be thoroughly cleaned “as a precautionary measure.”

Nathan called a break in the trial of Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad, who is charged with helping an Iranian construction company avoid U.S. sanctions, to discuss the issue with lawyers while deciding whether to go forward with the trial after a break or to send jurors home early for the day.

“It’s not an issue any of us had to deal with before,” Nathan said.

Jury selection in the case was conducted Monday, with dozens of potential panelists crowding into the jury box and spectator benches in the courtroom for most of the day. The jury was picked by the end of the day Monday, and opening statements from the prosecution and defense took place Tuesday morning.

Nathan called jurors back into the courtroom around 11:20 a.m., telling them they’d be taking “an early lunch break so the process can continue.” She told them the trial would resume at 12:30 p.m. in a large courtroom on the first floor of the federal courthouse, in downtown Manhattan’s Foley Square. Nathan didn’t immediately tell jurors the reason for the early break and the courtroom change.

During the lunch break, Nathan told the lawyers that the potential juror had received a letter from the Health Department saying that he or she had attended the synagogue on the same day as an infected person. The potential juror had no signs or symptoms of the illness, the judge said.

Nathan spoke to the jury privately at the end of the break.

“I think it went fine with the jurors,” she told the lawyers, before bringing the jury into the courtroom for the afternoon session. “They seemed accepting of the information.”

At least 13 New Yorkers have tested positive for the coronavirus, including a New Rochelle man who works as a lawyer in Manhattan. He’s currently hospitalized. The New Rochelle synagogue attended by the lawyer was closed on Tuesday and families who’d recently attended services there were asked to quarantine themselves.

Nejad, a dual Iran-St. Kitts citizen, is accused of sanctions evasion, money laundering and bank fraud. Nejad allegedly funneled $115 million in payments for a Venezuelan housing development through the U.S. financial system to ultimately benefit an Iranian construction company owned by his father.

The jury has been hearing testimony from FBI agents, a former executive of the construction firm and a U.S. Treasury Department official, among others.

To contact the reporters on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net;Christian Berthelsen in New York at cberthelsen1@bloomberg.net;Chris Dolmetsch in Federal Court in Manhattan at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg, Steve Stroth

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