A federal judge on Tuesday denied requests for a mistrial from four men charged with plotting to bomb Bronx synagogues and ordered jurors to continue their deliberations.

The defendants sought mistrials after jurors revealed that they had seen evidence that was not admitted at the trial, including a transcript of a conversation that the judge called inadmissible.

The judge, Colleen McMahon of Federal District Court in Manhattan, did not elaborate on her decision, saying only in her order that “a full opinion will follow later today or tomorrow.”

After denying the defendants’ request, Judge McMahon asked jurors whether they could “disregard” that extraneous evidence: transcripts of two of the defendants speaking on the telephone from prison after their arrest.

One of the jurors said, “I don’t know,” while the others said they could. After consulting with prosecutors and defense lawyers, who renewed their calls for a mistrial, Judge McMahon discharged the uncertain juror.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Judge McMahon told the juror, a woman. The judge asked the remaining 11 jurors to continue their deliberations.

The developments briefly stalled what, from a distance, seemed to be vigorous deliberation about the major issue in the case: in notes to the judge, jurors asked several times for elaboration on the law on entrapment.

As they deliberated on Tuesday, the shrunken jury, five men and six women, resumed sending notes to the judge, including one about the language of one of the charges facing the four defendants: attempting to acquire and use antiaircraft missiles.

The defendants — James Cromitie, Onta Williams, David Williams IV and Laguerre Payen — face the possibility of life in prison if they are convicted. Their lawyers have argued that they were entrapped by a government sting operation. In the transcripts the jurors were not supposed to see, both Onta Williams and David Williams are heard discussing the case.

In a transcript of a recorded conversation that appeared in all of the jurors’ binders, Onta Williams, in a conversation on May 29, 2009, told a woman that “the only reason why I was even in it ’cause of the money.”

In another conversation, David Williams discussed the entrapment defense with his father. The transcript of that conversation was in the binder of only the juror who was dismissed, though others said they had seen part of it.

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(Source: NY Times)