Exclusive: Tyco Juror No. 4
Last week, a gray-haired grandmother from New York City woke up to find her face plastered on papers around the country.
Her name is Ruth Jordan, but she's better known as Juror No. 4 in the trial of two Tyco executives.
Jordan was one of 12 jurors who, after sitting through five months of testimony, had their deliberations cut short last week when the judge declared a mistrial.
It happened after Jordan was accused of making an "OK" sign to the defense. That led to a torrent of press coverage not only identifying her, but also blaming her for single-handedly derailing the Tyco trial.
In an interview she granted to The New York Times and 60 Minutes II, Jordan broke her silence about her experience as Juror No. 4 – beginning with being chosen out of a pool of 1,200 people to serve on one of the biggest corporate fraud cases in U.S. history. Correspondent Dan Rather reports.
How did Jordan feel when she was announced as Juror No. 4?
"I thought, well. I don't believe this. I never win anything. I don't think I've won anything at all," says Jordan. "And this was sort of like winning a privilege, winning something that was going to be an opportunity to make a mark, to help to do something, you know, to have an effect."
Jordan, a 79-year-old retired teacher who went to law school at the age of 54, was one of 12 New Yorkers chosen to decide the fate of Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski and his Chief Financial Officer Mark Swartz.
"I am absolutely honored to have been given an opportunity. I felt it from the very beginning, to be given an opportunity to play my small one-twelfth part in making a momentous decision over the lives of somebody else," says Jordan, who claims she went into the trial with an open mind.
"I didn't know what they had done, and the only thing is, I am aware that there is a presumption of innocence. And I do feel that that's something that has to be honored."
From the start, the Tyco case has been watched closely. It's the first major corporate fraud trial of a CEO since the collapse of corporate giants like Enron and WorldCom.
Kozlowski and Swartz were charged with looting their company of $600 million through illegal loans, multi-million dollar bonuses and by artificially pumping up stock prices -- which made them even richer, but cost stockholders millions of dollars.
The case gained special notoriety because prosecutors portrayed Kozlowski as a poster boy for corporate bad behavior.
"It seemed to be pigs at the trough. It seems to be just such wretched excess," says Bruce Schaeffer, a lawyer who attended nearly every day of the trial for a book he is writing.
Schaeffer says the prosecution relied heavily on images of Kozlowski's lavish lifestyle. Jurors were shown a video of his $18 million Manhattan apartment – furnished with impressionist paintings and a now infamous $6,000 shower curtain and $15,000 poodle-shaped umbrella stand -- all paid for by Tyco.
Plus, a video of a $2 million birthday party Kozlowski gave for his wife Karen on the Italian island of Sardinia included a private concert by Jimmy Buffet and actors dressed as Romans, dancing in togas. Kozlowski sent half the bill to Tyco.
What's the most important thing for people to know about this trial?
"That it really involved far more than the sound bite images of the $6,000 shower curtain, the $15,000 dog umbrella stand, and an expensive party," says Schaeffer. "There was far more to this case than that. It took six months, because there was a great deal of substance presented."
For all that time, jurors put their jobs and lives on hold to listen to the prosecution's massive case – 48 witnesses, 700 exhibits and 12,000 pages of testimony including accounting ledgers, business memos and tax forms – all trying to prove that the defendants intentionally stole from their company.
"This case was so long and so complex, and it was loaded with so much heavy baggage. It was endless, endless piles of evidence that I think just drowned the jurors," says Jordan, who adds that she was able to stay focused on the case. "I like the law, and this is all about the law. And I found a lot of it fascinating."
But Jordan says that not everyone felt that way: "Each time the prosecution brought out another ledger, where there's 27 column of numbers, and writing down, 'Do you see this? Do you see that?' And they were just going to sleep. And I think they were just groaning, 'What do we need this for?' Some of them were saying, 'What, in six months they can't make their point? Believe me, jury duty is a lot more serious sacrifice than I had ever imagined."
What Jordan didn't like was what she called the emphasis the prosecution placed on the extravagant lifestyles of the defendants.
"I was repelled by the district attorney's bringing it on. And I heard other jurors say they were insulted, so insulted," says Jordan.
"I was insulted with the fact that the prosecution thought that that display of excessive and often bad taste things would persuade the jurors that the character of these men was so bad that it would add to their probability they committed a crime. In my view, all that excess really had really was beside the point. Because we're not convicting them on their lifestyle."
Even though Jordan says she was annoyed with the prosecution, she says she liked jury duty. In fact, at one point, the court clerk told her that her smiles and nods in court might suggest to some she was be enjoying the process a little too much.
"She said, 'Are you flirting with Mr. Kozlowski?' And I said, 'What? You must be out of your mind,'" recalls Jordan. "You know what? This man is, first of all, he has too many women in his life already. He's married. He's not really my type, and I'm 20 years older than he is. This is totally ridiculous. What are you talking about?' And she said, 'Oh, well. Alright, alright, I just wanted to be sure.'"
Near the end of the case, the defense and prosecution delivered closing arguments. The jury of nine men and three women then went behind closed doors to deliberate over the 32 counts of grand larceny, falsifying business records, conspiracy and securities fraud.
In the beginning, Jordan says she was firmly in the category of "they have not proven guilt" – even though she thought everyone else around the table was learning toward guilt: "Great many of them were. But I can't tell you that one exactly accurately, because, that's my impression, that they were leaning toward guilt."
Within days, tensions among the jurors grew so heated they sent this note to the judge, saying: "The atmosphere in the jury room has turned poisonous," and that "one member has stopped deliberating in good faith."
It wasn't long before everyone realized that member was Juror No. 4: Ruth Jordan.
Fellow juror Peter McEntegart says that note was right on the mark: "At that particular time there was the view of most of us that one juror was not willing, at that point, to see evidence that might lead to guilty verdicts on any of the counts. We hadn't gotten to all of them. But the rest of us felt I think as I did, that some of the very specific counts that the evidence was in fact overwhelming."
"We were in an 11-1 situation, and it's very natural that someone's going to feel attacked," adds McEntegart. "And I think Juror No. 4 did in fact feel attacked. And so sometimes she would shut down, be very defensive."
But if Jordan seemed defensive, she says it was based on the judge's instructions and her understanding of the law that Kozlowski and Swartz's guilt centered on the basic legal question of criminal intent. Did they intend to break the law?
"The heart of this case, to my view, was could they establish that the defendant intended to commit this crime? Intent was the center of the whole case, at least for me. And in a way it's rather elusive," says Jordan. "Because you can, and it did happen, that were many actions and were taken had taken place that the defendants intended. But they didn't intend to commit a crime. They intended to build the company from a $3 billion company to a $36 billion company."
Is that where Jordan differed with some, if not at all, of the jury?
"That's really what the crux of the argument was about. Were they authorized to do this or were they not," says Jordan.
"I think Ruth Jordan was perhaps burdened by the fact that she went to law school," says Schaeffer. "And when you go to law school, you take criminal law, and they teach you that in order for there to be a crime proved, you have to have two things. You have to have an act, and you have to have intent. An act alone is not a crime. Absent criminal intent."
Seven long days into deliberations, as jurors filed into the courtroom, several reporters said they saw Jordan flash an "OK" sign to the defense table. And that became front-page news across the country: Juror No. 4 signaling to the defense.
"No, I would never do that," says Jordan. "First of all, it's completely contrary to what I was supposed to be doing there as a juror. This is in the courtroom. I would not do that on principle. And beyond that, that's so unbelievably stupid. And this was in a courtroom … I didn't do it."
So how could some people in the gallery, including experienced court reporters, say that they saw Jordan give the defense an OK sign, or something very close to it?
"I do know that I touch my head quite a lot. It's a habit that I have. There's a little bit of a physical reason why I need to do it. I'm not usually conscious of it," says Jordan. "All I can say is it must have been one inadvertent thing like that that looked to them as if I was signaling them."
She also noted that the after-effects of a recent outbreak of shingles made her forehead painfully sensitive. "If one hair, one single hair comes onto my forehead, it feels like needles are sticking into it," says Jordan, adding that this causes her hand to go to her head some of the time. "I have to pull my hair back all the time."
Within hours of the alleged "OK" sign, the Wall Street Journal reported on that and posted Jordan's name on their Web site -- even though it's been a long-held tradition that the press does not identify jurors, at least until the trial is over.
"I think it's outrageous," says Jordan.
Last week, in the midst of drawn-out and contentious deliberations, Jordan was identified in some newspapers as the lone juror holding out for acquittal.
Jordan, who lives alone, never read those stories, because the judge had ordered jurors not to read accounts of the trial. But she quickly found out that she was no longer just one of 12 anonymous jurors, when her home telephone rang in the middle of the night.
"I think it was, like, I don't know, 4 o'clock in the morning or something? I was asleep. And the phone rang and I picked it up," recalls Jordan. "And this voice said, 'How much is the Kozlowski team paying you?' And I just said 'I don't know what you're talking about' and hung up. Hung up the phone."
The next morning, she says she told the judge about the call: "He asked me if I thought that in view of that that I could go on deliberating in good faith. And I said, 'Well, I think so.'"
The task before Jordan and the other jurors was not an easy one. They had to weigh evidence in one of the largest corporate fraud trial in U.S. history and decide if Kozlowski and Swartz were guilty of looting Tyco of $600 million – a crime punishable by up to 25 years in prison.
"I was so anxious to go on with the trial. I'm so conscious of all the time and all the effort that everybody put into it that I was trying to really do my utmost and say 'I'm not gonna let something like that stop me. I wanna go ahead and try to do my best to deliberate in good faith with the other jurors,'" says Jordan. "I did that."
In order to be a team player, Jordan said, she tried to convince herself Kozlowski and Swartz were guilty. But was there a time ever, a sense in the room, that maybe unanimity could be reached on those two counts?
"On a couple of occasions, I raised my hand, saying 'Alright, guilty,'" says Jordan. "But I didn't feel it. And I did it because I was trying to be reasonable and go to a consensus and not be the thorn underneath the saddle. But it bothered me."
Some of the other jurors were puzzled by Jordan's sudden turn-around. But they were hopeful the jury was on the verge of at least a few unanimous votes.
"I had said 'Oh, alright, I'll vote guilty because I was trying to be borrow the standard of the others. But put a question mark there. I'll say 'It's guilty with a question mark,'" says Jordan.
"And when I said 'You know, I'm not sure that I'm going to go with guilty on that, I'm not doing what's in my heart. I don't, I don't feel sincere about what I voted there. And they, that was sort of greeted with 'Ohhh. You know, look at this, she's not deliberating in good faith again.' They didn't give you credit that I really had a conviction there, I think."
Jordan says her conviction hinged on the fact that Kozlowski and Swartz had to be found guilty of more than just being obscenely rich, greedy, and ostentatious.
"Even ugly people deserve justice. Even people who have bad habits deserve justice. People have repellant lifestyles. Even greedy people, if they are greedy," says Jordan. "Even people who have so much they don't know how to spend it and still want more. Even they deserve justice when it comes to whether or not they committed a crime."
Would she have voted guilty on any count in the charges against the two Tyco executives? "I don't think I would have voted guilty on any count," says Jordan. "I don't think so."
In the end, that means the trial would have ended in a hung jury, even if the judge had not declared a mistrial when he did.
Jordan's refusal to go along with a guilty verdict made her the target of extensive press coverage – much of it, she says, inaccurate. For example, newspapers described her as a "batty blueblood" and "paranoid socialite" who "lives in quiet luxury" on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and, they said, rode to court in a limousine.
But in reality, Jordan says she lives in a one-bedroom apartment in a rent-subsidized building, and doesn't go to court in a limousine.
"Every morning of the six month of that jury trial, when the trial was on, I got up at 6:00 in the morning, and I had breakfast and I got dressed in what I thought was appropriate for the court," says Jordan. "Made my lunch, because for this wealthy Upper East Side person, $6 is too much for a sandwich. I resented it, and I can make a better one for one-sixth of that."
After packing her lunch, Jordan says took the subway to the courthouse: "It's really the most economical thing that I can do. I'm over 65. So I get the half-fare, which has now gone up to a dollar. But I get a, you know, two-for-one ride."
Jordan insists she only used a car service, and not a limo, for two days of the six-month-long trial, when her hip was hurting. "Car for hire, sedan," she says.
Another allegation about Jordan came from fellow juror, Peter McEntegart. He quoted Jordan as using an ethnic slur, in an article he wrote in this week's Time magazine.
"He said that you, and now I'll quote, 'Offered her view that when things went to hell at Tyco, the Ivy-league-educated, Waspy board of directors closed ranks, and served up, in her words, the 'Pollack and the Jew on a platter.' Did you say that," Rather asked Jordan.
"No," says Jordan. "I would never use the phrase 'Pollack and a Jew' because that is an ethnic characterization. There's a slur. I don't have any. I never do that … I flatly did not say that."
60 Minutes II asked McEntegart, the juror who wrote that article, if he was accurate.
"That's what I had written that night that I remember her saying. Now, since another juror who I respect said that she said, 'The Polish guy and the Jew,' I think that probably is just as likely," says McEntegart. "I do regret if she didn't use, you know, the slur for Polish-Americans -- that I wrote. I regret using that word. But the essence of what I said is exactly what happened."
"There is a lot of stuff that's said in the firestorm of a jury that under tremendous pressure that may well not have been meant," says Jordan. "And try to even recast it and report it later is almost impossible."
In spite of all the friction inside the jury room, as of last Thursday, many of the jurors believed deliberations were back on track and that they might be near a verdict. But then, Jordan went home and found a letter in her mailbox.
"It was a very innocuous looking, little plain envelope in reasonable handwriting," recalls Jordan.
She said that the letter mentioned the two Tyco executives. "Dennis and Mark are huge criminals, something like that. And how could I have failed to see that? And, oh that, that many, many shareholders had lost millions of dollars," says Jordan. "And that it was very sad that I had brought disgrace on my family. And it would be there for generations, or something like that."
Jordan took what she described as the "disturbing" letter to Judge Michael Obus the next morning. Although the judge had tried to push the high profile trial to a verdict, this was the last straw. He said he had to declared a mistrial.
Bruce Schaeffer, who was in the courtroom nearly every day of the trial, says that, however imperfect, the Tyco case is an example of how the American legal system is supposed to work.
What does think now of Juror No. 4, Ruth Jordan?
"Perhaps she is suffering all of this malicious mail and or phone calls for doing what the founding fathers would have wanted her to do. And standing up for the principal of American jurisprudence," says Schaeffer.
And what would he say to those who believe that Jordan stood against what would have been a just and valid verdict of guilty for the two executives?
"They're entitled to their option. But that's why you have to get a unanimous verdict to put people in jail," says Schaeffer.
Robert Morgenthal, the Manhattan district attorney, has vowed to retry the Tyco case, but at least for the moment, the fates of Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz remain in legal limbo.
For Jordan, however, jury duty taught her about the law, and even more about people. What does this jury deliberation tell her about human nature?
"The evidence and the law are absolutely essential," says Jordan. "But there is some heartfelt inner conviction which finally informs your decision."
Jordan says she has a clear conscience about her actions. But she has some fears that her reputation will be tarnished.
"As far as reputation, I think that's definitely been shaken. I'm going to have to just live with it," says Jordan.
"If I had voted against my conscience, and said 'Alright, they're guilty' when I don't believe, then why can't anybody else do the same thing? And that's an absolute destruction of what the jury system is about. And that would be a loss. So maybe it cost all of us to maintain that ability to believe and stay with our convictions."