Sorry, Bobby!
“Tell De Niro I’m sorry,” the last holdout juror said after buckling under pressure from screaming female jurors this morning and acquitting the former director of Manhattan’s Salander-O’Reilly Gallery of stealing $77,000 in paintings from the “Raging Bull” actor.
“I tried to get the conviction. It was hopeless,” said the juror, Stanley Cohen, speaking to reporters right after his verdict — and blaming an “agitated,” name-calling quartet of women for bullying him off his vote.
“The other women were all saying they were losing money,” Cohen, 57, of Morningside Heights, griped.
“I apologize to Mr. De Niro,” the guilt-wracked juror said. “I will see him in the movies.”
Jurors did convict disgraced director Leigh Morse, 54, today of helping her boss defraud other art owners in a massive, $120 million scam scheme — she’ll face up to four years for that conviction at sentencing.
But the panel acquitted on the De Niro art heist after almost deadlocking 11-to-one, and Cohen told reporters that he was that last holdout — only caving this morning in clearing Morse of ripping off the actor.
“I could have hung the jury. I thought she was guilty,” said Cohen.
The panel’s four women were convinced from the start that Morse might have figured her boss, convicted swindler Lawrence Salander, would eventually pay the actor back.
Defense lawyer Andrew Lankler had argued that there was insufficient evidence to prove that in 2007 she committed grand larceny by permanently depriving the $77,000 sale proceeds from two works by the actor’s late father, noted abstract painter Robert De Niro, Sr., whose estate the actor managed.
Prosecutors Micki Shulman-Hendricks and Kenn Kern had countered that the theft was indeed intended as permanent. Morse was owed a whopping $300,000 in commissions by her boss, and had just planned to keep De Niro’s money and whatever else she could get her hands on before jumping ship, prosecutors had argued.
Cohen told reporters he only buckled after pressure from the four women on the jury became “unbearable.”
“One of them blew up on me — she said I was a child. The women were very emotional; they resorted to name calling. I have never been so tired in 24 years after a day of doing this,” he said.
“I wanted to convict,” he added. “How did she know Larry [Salander] would pay him back? I’d like to apologize to him,” Cohen said. “His daddy didn’t want anyone but his son to get that money. Stealing from a rich man is still a crime.”
De Niro had taken the stand against Morse in Manhattan Supreme Court three weeks ago, testifying he was never told of the sales — though he conceding that he hadn’t kept a close eye on his father’s paintings because he simply trusted the gallery to do the right thing.
De Niro was not to blame, Cohen noted. “He had the restaurants; he has kids; he’s making movies. It didn’t hurt him that he didn’t remember everything. He is a very busy man.”
As for De Niro himself, “I thought he was very charismatic,” Cohen said. “He is a rumpled old guy, and his charisma was palpable.”