Maybe they should have just tossed a coin.
Giants’ co-owner John Mara said it was an “exhausting process” yesterday after his month-long stint on jury duty came to an end.
The Big Blue CEO voted to return a verdict that convicted two men and acquitted two others in an international drug case.
“I think the system worked,” he said while leaving Manhattan federal court.
Mara, dressed casually in blue jeans and a button-down shirt, said he was headed to the Giants’ offices for the first round of the NFL draft, set for later in the day.
He said the team was prepared for the event — which continues through tomorrow — even though he missed a lot of meetings while doing his civic duty.
“I take this seriously with four guys’ lives at stake,” he said of the trial.
Mara had tried to do an end run around jury service by citing his need to prepare for the draft, telling the judge: “It is a big, big period for us, and I need to be at [work] during that period.”
But Judge Jed Rakoff refused to release him, saying only “a real emergency” would send him to the showers.
And while he was initially selected as an alternate, Mara got called off the bench — and into the No. 1 seat — after another jury wound up on the disabled list with a case of food poisoning.
Mara, meanwhile, apparently kept in close contact with the Giants’ front office, regularly spending part of his lunch break sending messages on his cell phone outside the courthouse.
The trial involved an investigation prompted by the son of Liberia’s president after a South American cocaine cartel organization tried to bribe officials to let drug shipments pass through the country.
A Drug Enforcement Administration agent testified that Fumbah Sirleaf — then head of Liberia’s National Security Agency — contacted the DEA in May 2009, and later pretended to be corrupt as part of a sting operation.