The holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy mistrial is fighting back after the killer’s attorney filed a motion to request his cell phone records over allegations he used his device during deliberations.
Fellow jurors had alleged that holdout juror Michael P. Desronvil was on his phone while they were deliberating whether to convict Clancy of killing her three children — Callan, 8 months; Dawson, 3; and Cora, 5 — prompting her defense attorney Kevin Reddington to request the records.
Desronvil, however, claimed that several other jurors used their cell phones throughout the seven days of deliberations and even posted to social media, his spokesperson Ray Marcel said in NewsNation’s Brian Entin.
“He said everybody had their phone on them. It wasn’t like they took their phones away and locked them away,” Marcel recalled of a conversation with Desronvil.
“There were juror member[s] — which I’m not going to say names — that were posting on social media, allegedly, you know, while deliberations [were] going on,” the spokesperson added.
Marcel, who is the host of a true-crime YouTube channel, told Entin that he didn’t know if the panelists were allowed to use their cell phones during deliberations but “they never said ‘give me your phone or lock it up in this, you know, locker’ or anything like that,” based on his conversations with Desronvil.
“From what Michael told me was ‘Hey, people were sitting back there on their phones you know that’s how it was,’” Marcel added.
On his YouTube show, “Fugitive TV,” Marcel previously said Desronvil Googled the term “psychosis” to “make sure he has it right” as well as “altruistic filicide” because “he never heard of that in his life.”
Marcel also claimed to have read the paper instructions for the jury prior to deliberations and noted a “gray area” that “does not say that when you go home you can’t or cannot look up a word if you don’t know what that word means” and that they are “pretty sure Michael’s not the only one who had to look something up.”
The allegations from Desronvil’s spokesperson come after Clancy’s lawyer Reddington called on the judge who oversaw her triple murder trial to investigate the holdout juror on the basis that he may have inaccurately filled out jury forms or answered questions during the selection process, according to a motion obtained by the New Haven Register.
Reddington also claimed that Desronvil used his cell phone during deliberations and requested Judge William Sullivan to order the holdout’s phone carrier to provide call and text detail records for each day of deliberations and to require him to give Desronvil’s phone to a “neutral examiner” so its data can be reviewed, Mass Live reported.
In the motion, Reddington references comments from a fellow juror, Nick Dargie, who told ABC News that Desronvil did not engage with other panelists and scrolled on his phone during deliberations.
Jurors are allowed to keep their phones with them, but are barred from using them during trial or deliberations, under Massachusetts’ trial court system.
Judges can require jurors to turn in their phones before deliberations, but there is no sign Sullivan did so in Clancy’s trial.
Marcel doubled down on the other juror’s cell phone use throughout the week of deliberations in an X post on Wednesday.
“You will see that the judge had already told the jurors to stop using electronic devices AFTER — and I repeat, AFTER — jurors had allegedly been using their phones during deliberations to look up definitions,” Marcel said, adding, “Meaning the Judge already told them to stop. So the court already knows.”
“There were also allegations of jurors posting on social media and discussing with friends what case they were deliberating. And then there’s the allegation involving a [blank juror] posting in a Karen Read Facebook group. Yet, once again, Michael gets outed,” the YouTube host said.
Marcel pleaded for the other panelists’ cell phones to be investigated — not just Desronvil’s.
“And as for Mr. Kevin Reddington, I’m not worried about that. Because if we’re going to start looking at Michael’s phone records, then let’s be consistent: Let’s look at EVERYONE’S phone records.”
“Don’t single out one juror. If Michael’s communications are relevant, then the same standard should apply across the board,” Marcel wrote.
Desronvil was the single holdout juror who refused to declare Clancy not guilty of murdering her three kids by reason of insanity due to severe postpartum psychosis. The hung jury sparked a mistrial.
The Post reached out to Reddington and Desronvil’s attorney, Edward Paltzik, for comment.
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