The knitter and the latecomer: 12 jurors who decided Patrick Ho’s fate in ex-Hong Kong minister’s US$2.9 million corruption trial
- Nine women and three men spent seven days in a New York courtroom before finding Ho guilty of seven of eight counts of bribery and money laundering
For seven days, nine women and three men have sat in a New York courtroom with former Hong Kong minister Patrick Ho Chi-ping, listening to the evidence pile up against him on bribery and money-laundering charges involving US$2.9 million.
The hand-picked jurors were there to weigh all that was presented to the Southern District Court of New York and decide Ho’s fate. On Wednesday, December 5, they decided he was guilty of seven of the eight counts he faced.
One juror, an older woman with grey hair and big reading glasses, brought her knitting to court and worked at it for five out seven days of the hearing, her needles set aside only on the first day, when she was selected, and the last day, when the lawyers presented their summations.
She appeared to stay engaged with the proceedings, however. From time to time she would raise her eyes from her knitting to the monitor in front of her to check whatever evidence was being presented by the lawyers. Then she returned to knitting again.
Almost every day, one woman juror arrived a few minutes late and held up the start of proceedings. On Day Two, one juror asked to keep a doctor’s appointment the next week, and another informed the court that his wife was due to undergo surgery the following week. No one took leave in the end.
