The foreman of the jury that found Kim Kardashian, her mother Kris Jenner and her sisters Kylie and Khloé not owed Blac Chyna damages for alleged defamation and contract interference says he believes the judge who handled the highly scrutinized case may have been a bit “aggressive”. with Chyna’s attorney on occasion, but overall “it was a fair trial.”
Rajiv Ghosh, 35, tells Rolling Stone that the jury panel successfully insulated itself from the behind-the-scenes drama and complaints that form the basis of a failed effort by Chyna’s attorney, Lynne Ciani, to disqualify Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Gregory Alarcon , of the case.
He said the five-man, seven-woman panel obviously noticed when Judge Alarcon’s secretary, Cher Mason, was replaced by another secretary a few days after the trial, but he and his fellow jurors had no idea the removal was due. to allegations that Mason requested a hearing. with the Kardashian-Jenner women for her adult daughter. (Ciani claimed that Judge Alarcón “implicitly approved” the “unethical” conduct.)
“I didn’t even know that Mrs. Mason brought her daughter. No one said anything to me during the deliberations. I can safely say it didn’t affect anything. We didn’t know. He didn’t mention it to anyone,” says Ghosh. Rolling Stone. “We had asked what happened to him and we did not get a clear answer. The bailiff also changed… Many days later we found out that it could have been health problems. The joke was that the real case was: ‘What happened to Mrs. Mason?’”
He said jurors also noted that Chyna’s mother, Tokyo Toni, did not return to the courtroom after jury selection, but said it was not something they discussed. However, he points out that he had no idea that Ciani accused Judge Alarcón of retaliating against Blac Chyna, whose legal name is Angela White, because her mother made derogatory statements on social media about the Kardashian-Jenner women and the judge himself afterward. to ban Toni from the courtroom
“We noticed, but it wasn’t a big issue with the jurors because people were going in and out all the time. We don’t know the schedules of professional celebrities. We didn’t know the reason, not at all,” she said.
Ghosh said he agreed that Judge Alarcon showed some obvious impatience with Ciani at times, but said, again, “it wasn’t really an argument between the jurors.”
“I felt like it was harsh on Ms. Ciani, but it didn’t seem unwarranted because it seemed like she wasn’t ready at some point. They felt like teachable moments. Maybe the judge didn’t have to be so aggressive about it, but his motives were always to keep the case going. He was trying not to waste our time,” he said.
The jury foreman insisted that the judge’s perceived annoyance with Ciani did not affect the outcome of the trial.
“No one in the jury room mentioned it during the deliberations. And it didn’t affect my ability to see what was fair or not. There may have been some awkward moments, like you’re having dinner with a couple who are fighting in front of you, but, other than that, it didn’t affect the evidence we heard or the testimony we got,” she said. .
In her May 5 filing seeking to get Judge Alarcon off the case ahead of a related trial over Chyna’s still-pending revenge porn claims against Rob Kardashian, Ciani said Judge Alarcon’s behavior toward her became noticeably more ” disrespectful and dismissive” as the trial progressed. as all the drama unfolded with Chyna’s mom and the elimination of her employee of the last 13 years.
Judge Alarcón rejected that request in a decision issued yesterday. Documentation for Ciani’s May 5 motion and the judge’s ruling were not made available to the public until Wednesday.
“An impartial judge would have allowed another Los Angeles Superior Court judge to review the plaintiff’s disqualification statement and decide for himself whether Judge Alarcón should have been disqualified. Instead, the biased judge ruled that she is not biased, depriving Angela White of justice once again,” Ciani said in a statement Wednesday night.
In his own opposition to Ciani’s request for disqualification, Kardashian-Jenner’s attorney, Michael Rhodes, claimed that Ciani is a sore loser who only filed her motion “after the jury ruled against her client.”
“This delay reveals the true motivation behind Plaintiff’s motion: to save Ms. Ciani’s reputation by deflecting blame for her own shortcomings at trial and to generate more publicity for Plaintiff,” he wrote.