A juror cut loose Friday from the corruption trial of ex-Councilman Dan Halloran said he would have found the accused pol guilty of brokering bribes to get Sen. Malcolm Smith on the Republican mayoral ballot last year.
“I believe he was guilty of taking bribes in exchange for setting up the meetings with the county chairs,” said the juror, a 26-year-old man from Duchess County who was dismissed because he could no longer serve on the lengthy trial.
“It’s very convenient that [Halloran] had an excuse for absolutely everything . . . In my mind he really didn’t own up to anything.”
Meanwhile, Halloran took the stand Friday to desperately claim that he knew an undercover federal agent was asking him to break the law but that he went along with the conversation in order to snag campaign cash.
“They’re trying to get me to say, ‘I’ll do this in exchange for the money.’ Now, I’m not going to do that because I know the rules,” Halloran said.
“I’m trying to tell somebody, ‘No,’ in a nice way . . . You can’t piss off donors.
“I’m not being completely honest with them, but [I need to] not have them walk away from the table when I needed them for my congressional campaign.”
The case against Smith ended in a mistrial last month when too few jurors were able to serve as the trial went a month longer than expected.
Halloran will continue testifying on Monday.