Sunny Hostin Stuns The View by Revealing She Was the Holdout Juror in Notorious 1991 New York Insanity Case

Sunny Hostin surprised her fellow The View panelists on Tuesday when she revealed a little-known chapter from her past: she says she was the holdout juror in the 1991 trial of Daniel Rakowitz, whose case became notorious in New York because of the disturbing allegations surrounding the death of Monika Beerle.

The revelation emerged during a discussion about the Lindsay Clancy case and the role of a holdout juror in that trial. Hostin, now a lawyer and television personality who previously worked as a federal prosecutor, used her own jury experience to explain why she believes jurors should be able to deliberate without facing investigations simply because their conclusions are unpopular.

“You Were on That Jury?”

Rakowitz was accused of stabbing his girlfriend to death, dismembering and her body, eating parts of it and feeding it to homeless people.ASSOCIATED PRESS

Hostin said she served on the jury that considered the case against Rakowitz, who was accused in the 1989 death of Beerle, a 26-year-old Swiss dance student who lived with him in New York.

Rakowitz was ultimately found not guilty by reason of mental disease and was committed to psychiatric care.

Hostin said she initially stood apart from other jurors because she believed Rakowitz was not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.

Her co-hosts appeared stunned when she identified the case.

“The guy who ate the victims?” Joy Behar interjected.

“Yes,” Hostin replied.

Alyssa Farah Griffin then asked in disbelief: “You were on that jury?”

Hostin said the claim had even surprised people during the program’s preparation, prompting a producer to locate contemporary reporting from 1991.

An article from that period quoted a juror named Asuncion Cummings — Hostin’s given name — discussing the jury’s reasoning.

“That was me,” Hostin said.

Nine Days of Intense Deliberations

Rakowitz looks in the direction of his attorney as he listens to the jury’s verdict in Civil Court at 111 Center St. in Manhattan, on Tuesday, July 20, 2004.Robert Miller for NY Post

Hostin recalled an extraordinarily tense jury room.

According to her account, the jury was sequestered for nine days and disagreement became so intense that one fellow juror threw a chair at her.

Hostin nevertheless maintained her position and said she repeatedly challenged the other jurors to reconsider different aspects of the evidence.

Eventually, according to Hostin, all 12 jurors agreed that Rakowitz was not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.

Her description prompted another startled response from Griffin.

“And you got this guy off?!” she said.

Hostin stressed that an insanity verdict did not mean Rakowitz simply walked free.

Following the verdict, he was confined at Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Wards Island. He was later relocated to the state-run Manhattan Psychiatric Center.

Why Hostin Told the Story Now

The decades-old case resurfaced because The View panel was discussing the aftermath of the Lindsay Clancy trial.

That case ended without a unanimous verdict, and Clancy’s attorney Kevin Reddington subsequently raised questions about the holdout juror, including issues involving cellphone use during deliberations and answers given on a pre-trial questionnaire.

Hostin strongly objected to the broader idea of scrutinizing a juror simply because that person refused to join the majority.

“That’s going to have a chilling effect on juries,” she argued.

For Hostin, the issue was personal because she remembered what it was like to be the person resisting enormous pressure inside a jury room.

“Jury duty is duty,” she said, describing it as one of the most important things she had ever done.

Her unexpected disclosure transformed a discussion about the Clancy case into a revelation about her own past — and left several of her colleagues visibly surprised that Hostin had once been at the center of one of New York’s most notorious criminal trials.