Just an hour into deliberations, jurors are signaling that there’ll be no quick verdict in the sensational Soho House tub-strangle trial.
Right out of the gate, the Manhattan Supreme Court jury sent out a pair of notes asking for a read back of some 225 pages of medical examiner testimony detailing the horrifying submersion and strangulation death of beautiful swimsuit designer Sylvie Cachay, 33.
They also asked for more than an hour’s worth of hallway surveillance video showing Cachay’s accused murderer boyfriend, Nicholas Brooks, 27, coming and going from Room 20 on the exclusive hotel’s fifth floor.
Prosecutors say that as Brooks paced back and forth in the hallway in apparent nervousness — occasionally even biting his nails — Cachay already lay dead inside their room on that predawn morning in December, 2010.
“The estimated reading time is eight to ten hours,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Bonnie Wittner told jurors of their request for the direct and cross examinations of the city’s acting chief medical examiner, Dr. Barbara Sampson.
The judge asked them to consider whether they could narrow down their requests for the hallway video and ME testimony.
Sampson had testified on June 25 that the deep-tissue bruises to Cachay’s neck — and the tiny, burst blood vessels in her eyes — indicate manual strangulation and drowning, and that the five prescription pain killers and anti-anxiety drugs in her system were “all within the therapeutic range.”
Cachay had suffered from migraines and the pain condition fibromyalgia.
Defense lawyer Jeffrey Hoffman and his own expert medical examiner told jurors that the burst blood vessels and neck bruises could have resulted from aggressive CPR attempts and that she could have drowned accidentally due to the drugs in her system.
But prosecutors and Sampson have disputed that.
Cachay was partially dressed when her lifeless body was found submerged in the overflowing tub. “People don’t take baths with their sweater on,” assistant district attorney Joel Seidemann told jurors as he wrapped up closing arguments earlier today.
“Two and a half years have passed since Sylvie’s body was found submerged in a tub,” Seidemann told jurors before turning and pointing his finger at Brooks at the defense table.
“The person who robbed her of her life is seated right there,” he said. “The defendant sits in that chair not because of anything you did, but because of the choices he made.”