BUFFALO – The juror at the center of a retrial request by convicted murderer Jeffrey Basil’s attorneys spent about two hours on the witness stand Tuesday in the Erie County Courthouse.

Although no sentencing took place during these most recent court proceedings, Juror No. 12 – a woman from East Concord – testified on the topic of what defense attorney Paul Cambria Jr. alleged as an intentional concealment of past criminal charges against her and a military background during jury selection before Basil’s trial.

Last January, Basil, 36, formerly of Amherst, was found guilty of second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence in the May 2014 death of Silver Creek native and Air National Guardsman William Sager Jr., 28. The jury deduced that Basil, a bar manager, succeeded in intentionally killing Sager, a bar patron, by shoving him down a staircase at the now-closed Molly’s Pub in Buffalo, causing him to slam his head on a concrete floor below.

Cambria told State Supreme Court Judge Penny M. Wolfgang that if the information about Juror No. 12 was known at the time, she would either have been rendered excused from her duties before the trial got underway and/or subjected to further questioning to figure out if any bias existed, especially since she has military experience in common with Sager. Since that was not the case, Cambria argued, Basil was deprived of his right to a fair trial.

Once Juror No. 12 took the stand, Cambria had her admit that on a jury selection questionnaire, she noted she was never accused of a crime. Cambria then supplied paperwork detailing two instances of accusations against Juror No. 12: allegedly issuing a fraudulent or bad check in North Carolina and allegedly stealing jewelry from her workplace in Florida in 1997.

“I know it didn’t happen,” Juror No. 12 insisted in regard to the bad check incident, while pointing out the grand theft case left her mind since it happened about 20 years ago and the charge was dropped shortly after.

“This (the grand theft case) was the first and only time that you’ve been accused of a felony, and you didn’t remember that when you were asked as a potential juror?” Cambria questioned. “Being accused of a felony wasn’t a big deal to you?”

“No,” Juror 12 replied. “It was a couple-hour ordeal and I was never convicted of a crime and it left my memory since then. I never went to court and I never paid a fine. I never thought it was an issue because I was never convicted. If I did it and I had something to be scared about, I’m sure it would’ve been a big deal (to me).”

Cambria also pointed out that No. 12 volunteered to share her military experience with a WKBW-TV reporter, as well as her fellow jurors, but did not volunteer that history during jury selection when asked indirectly, as part of a group of potential jurors.

“Other people were asked,” No. 12 remarked, adding she was told about Sager’s being in the military, after some prodding by Cambria. “I don’t believe I was asked specifically.”

That history, she testified, included about two years in the Air Force Reserve.

Erie County Assistant District Attorney Christopher Belling, the lead prosecutor handling the case, countered Cambria’s claims by having No. 12 point out that her military history and her prior run-ins with the law had no sway whatsoever on her decision to convict Basil on the murder charge.

In fact, according to Juror No. 12, during deliberations, the jurors took a straw poll to convict on the second-degree murder charge. The result of that poll, No. 12 said, was 9-3 to convict. She then choked up around the time when she said she was on the minority side of the poll and favored going with a lesser charge at first.

“I did my job (as a juror) and I did it well (without bias),” she said, adding she did not conceal some information like the defense alleged; she had just forgotten about it, she said.

Belling also called two other people to the witness stand – Juror No. 6 from Orchard Park and Juror No. 11 of North Collins. No. 6 testified that he disclosed his military history to the attorneys during jury selection. Both of them backed up Juror No. 12’s claim that the straw poll to convict on the murder charge was 9-3, with No. 12 initially on the side not to convict.

Wolfgang reserved decision on the defense’s request to set the guilty verdict aside and scheduled Basil’s next court appearance for May 5 at 9:30 a.m.

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