Thirsty Juror In Whitmer Kidnap Trial May Be Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

There's no accounting for taste.

It's not always easy to find love — and for the most part, we'd love to say that there's no right way and no wrong way. But if there is a wrong way, it is probably by serving on the object of your affection's jury when that person just so happens to be a white supremacist who plotted to kidnap the governor of Michigan.

The judge and prosecutors in the third trial related to the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot are concerned that one of the female jurors may have the hots for 22-year-old defendant Paul Bellar and that this may affect her ability to be objective in determining his guilt or innocence.

“Since the start of the trial there has been nonverbal communication between one of the jurors and Mr. Bellar. The communication has been in the form of eye contact, smiling at each other” one of the prosecutors said during a trial break on Wednesday, adding that during a sidebar earlier in the day, Bellar had “a physical response” in which he “clenched both his fists and shook them in an affirmative way.”

“We’re very concerned about this juror," he told Jackson County Circuit Judge Thomas Wilson, noting that two witnesses were prepared to testify they saw the juror and Bellar nonverbally flirting during the trial.

"Your honor, just so the court's aware, the shaking of the fist was because of Skittles," defense attorney Andrew Fitzpatrick explained. Fitzpatrick says that during the sidebar, which he was not a part of, he went over to the judge’s clerk in order to ask her for some candy, and she asked him if his client would like some Skittles.

"'Cause guess what, it's his birthday today, and by the way, happy birthday. And she knew it was his birthday." Fitzpatrick then went on to say that he was showing his client the Skittles in order to see if he wanted the Skittles, and he shook his fists to signal that yes, he did in fact want Skittles. Fitzpatrick then demonstrated Bellar's excited "You got me some Skittles!" fist-shaking gesture.

He said the whole thing was recorded on camera and he's probably not wrong because the Skittles story is just too stupid to make up.

Fitzpatrick then said that he had noticed the juror making eyes at Bellar and discussed it with his client because he is proactive like that. "He knows! He knows he’s not supposed to be having — they haven’t spoken outside of this, he’s not winking at her, he's not doing anything to encourage her."

Defense attorney Kareem Johnson, who is representing Bellar's co-defendant Pete Musico pointed out — fairly — that jurors make all kinds of faces during trials that could betray a bias one way or another, particularly against the defense, and they don't get kicked off the jury, adding that we don't know what her faces were about because no one has talked to her about it.

"I see her looking directly at your client, and a number of times I've seen smiles coming out of her face. It's enough that it's drawing my attention," Judge Wilson told Fitzpatrick, saying that these looks were not related to anything that was happening in the case. He declined to get rid of the potentially lovestruck juror, but said he'd be keeping an eye on her.

If the juror is in love with Bellar, she would not be the first juror to fall in love with an inordinately repulsive defendant. Quite famously, Cindy Haden, one of the jurors in Richard Ramirez's trial, was in love with him (despite finding him guilty) — and she was one of several women to fall head over heels for the Night Stalker and lord knows how many women to fall in love with serial killers. And let us not forget Ben Shapiro's notoriously arid doctor wife, who truly proves, perhaps well beyond Cindy Haden, Carole Ann Boone (Ted Bundy) or Veronica Compton (Kenneth Bianchi) that there truly is no accounting for taste.

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