A Ghislaine Maxwell juror could be granted immunity to testify about whether he lied on a pre-trial form

• A Ghislaine Maxwell juror is scheduled to testify about whether he lied on his pre-trial form.
• Maxwell's lawyers want a new trial, arguing she was deprived of a fair and impartial jury.

The juror who threw Ghislaine Maxwell's sex-trafficking conviction into doubt by disclosing his sexual abuse history to media outlets will attend a hearing on Tuesday where a federal judge will ask him, under oath, if he lied about his past to get on the jury.

Juror #50, who has identified himself publicly as Scotty David, told multiple media outlets in January that he had drawn upon his own experience as a sexual abuse survivor during jury deliberations, and had persuaded multiple other jurors to believe the witnesses who testified against Maxwell.

Yet David answered "No" twice on his pre-trial questionnaire in response to questions about whether he or his loved ones had ever been a victim of a crime or a victim of sexual abuse, according to a copy of his questionnaire that was unsealed last week.

US District Judge Alison Nathan ordered David to appear at a March 8 hearing to testify under oath about whether he was honest on his jury questionnaire, but David's lawyer said in court filings on March 2 that his client would invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

Prosecutors then indicated they would grant Juror #50 immunity, according to court records. Jury expert Jill Huntley Taylor, of Taylor Trial Consulting, questioned that strategy, saying "it suggests that perhaps the prosecutors know more about this than the rest of us."

"Giving this juror immunity to get the whole truth, which presumably is something more than he made a mistake, is difficult to understand," Huntley Taylor told Insider. "Was he a stealth juror intent on getting on the jury and finding Maxwell guilty?"

Though sexual abuse experience would not automatically disqualify someone from serving on a jury, defense attorneys often use the pre-trial questionnaires to weed out prospective jurors who could have a bias against the defendant.

David's disclosures to the media prompted Maxwell's defense attorneys to demand a new trial for their client, saying Maxwell was denied her right to be judged by a fair and impartial jury. David, through his lawyer, has said in court filings that he "does not recall answering questions regarding his prior experience with sexual assault."

Jury experts have previously told Insider that there are often benign explanations for why jurors are not truthful during the jury selection process. For instance, sometimes people skim past questions and don't read them thoroughly, and others don't recognize their past experiences as sexual abuse until they're seated on a jury and hear details of sexual abuse.

But Huntley Taylor said whatever Juror #50 reveals during his testimony on Tuesday, it likely won't change the Maxwell lawyers' efforts to overturn her conviction.

"Regardless of what you think of Maxwell, like any criminal defendant she is entitled to a fair and impartial jury; the inability to question this juror about a very relevant life experience and whether that would influence him in this case is something the defense will argue deprived them of that right," Huntley Taylor said.