Court may question juror on comments made about high-profile case

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Vilardo said in court today he initially had concerns with a juror’s post-trial comments made during an interview by a local television station, in which he criticized the defense strategy in last year’s trial for Pharaoh’s strip club owner Peter Gerace.

However, Vilardo had a different take after reading the interview transcripts again. 

In December 2024, the jury convicted Gerace on eight crimes, including drug and sex trafficking. 

Three months after the verdict, the juror said during the interview that he was “shocked” that Gerace’s attorneys, Mark Foti and Eric Soehnlein, had no witnesses testifying to counter the government’s evidence. He said the decision was “borderline incompetent.” 

“Show me 10 or 15 or 20 or 30 dancers that came in and said, ‘that didn’t happen’,” the juror said.

Foti interpreted the juror’s comments to mean the jury had an expectation of defense witnesses testifying, which conflicts with the judge’s instructions before the jury deliberated. 

Foti asked Vilardo if the juror’s comments raised any red flags. 

“You’re right, when I read it, it caused me some concern,” Vilardo said. 

Vilardo said after reading the transcripts again, he believed the juror wanted to hear evidence that could acquit Gerace. 

“It sounds to me he was a good defense juror,” Vilardo said. 

Foti said the juror’s comments implied the jury “took everything the government said as fact,” and that’s a matter of justice the judge should resolve with an inquiry of the juror. 

The defense did not call witnesses, Foti said, because the government deliberately charged some of their key witnesses after they listed their names on the defense witness list. As a result, those witnesses couldn’t testify, and other witnesses feared being charged if they testified. 

“Isn’t that something that should concern me?” Vilardo asked prosecutors. 

U.S. Assistant Attorney Joseph Tripi said nothing prevented the defense attorneys from subpoenaing a witness to testify.

Tripi said the courts did not instruct jurors not to speak to the media, and this juror made singular opinions after the verdict, none of which implied the jury did not do its job. The juror said himself that they pored through all of the court documents and instructions before their unanimous verdict, Tripi said. 

Tripi said there are few circumstances that would allow the courts to question a juror, and this is not one of them. He used a Buffalo Bills analogy for the juror’s comments: If a referee who called a Bills game had retired and later criticized the coach and team for running a bad play, that wouldn’t mean he did not fairly call the game.

Gerace’s attorneys raised other arguments, including uncredible or conflicting testimony by former exotic dancers.

The government said Gerace used his authority as club owner and reputation for being connected to Italian Organized Crime to coerce vulnerable exotic dancers into engaging in commercial sex acts by feeding their drug habits or getting them addicted to hard drugs, some of which were regularly sold inside the club. 

Gerace, and a connected drug trafficking organization, got away with their crimes for over a decade because a corrupt DEA agent, Joseph Bongiovanni, shielded them by falsifying reports and misleading colleagues, the government said. 

Gerace faces life in prison. 

The judge reserved a decision on the motion for a new trial or acquittal, and whether the juror should be brought in to testify.