News/Commentary

Facts clash with Sunny Hostin’s sensational claim she was holdout juror in NYC cannibalism trial

September 26, 2026 | | Print Article

As Sunny Hostin doubled down on her claim of helping acquit an infamous admitted murderer and cannibal, receipts told a different story regarding her effort to sympathize with a high-profile case.

In the wake of the declared mistrial of Lindsay Clancy, corporate media and cultist online commentators have embarked on an effort to demonize the lone holdout juror who refused to buy into the insanity plea for the mother who admitted to murdering her three young children.

Agreeing with the majority about Clancy, the co-host of ABC’s “The View” harkened back to her own experience as a juror in 1991, bragging that she had once been the holdout juror for the admitted Butcher of Tompkins Square Park, Daniel Rakowitz. However, contemporary news reports told a different story.

On Tuesday’s installment of “The View,” Hostin presented an article from the February 23, 1991 edition of The New York Times that featured a quote from her under her given name, Asunción Cummings, as Rakowitz was acquitted of killing his roommate, 26-year-old Monika Beerle, in 1989.

Describing why she felt Clancy should not be held criminally responsible in her trial, the former federal prosecutor said, “And the reason I felt that — I feel so strongly about this holdout juror is because I was a holdout juror in a case, in the Daniel Rakowitz case. I don’t know if people remember it — the Butcher of Tompkins Square Park?”

Joy Behar chimed in, “He was the guy who ate the victims?”

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“Yes,” continued Hostin as the ladies became more animated. “… I don’t think everyone believed me, and then my producer looked it up, and I’m in The New York Times.”

In supporting her claim, Hostin said, “It was because I saw clearly that he was psychotic, he was in psychosis, he did not mean to kill her and once he killed her, he panicked, he chopped up her body parts — yes, boiled the body parts — tried to commit the perfect crime and then fed her-”

“And you got this guy off,” interjected an incredulous Alyssa Farah Griffin as her co-host continued, “No. No. But he fed — that’s how much I believe in the insanity defense. And he fed her body parts to the unhoused.”

She further claimed a juror threw a chair at her as the panel was “so angry” at her. “But one by one I picked them off and said, ‘What about this? What about that?’ and he ended up, all 12 unanimously voted that he was not criminally responsible for reason of mental — of, of insanity.”

Although she presented an article from the February 23, 1991 edition of The New York Times, the Daily News revealed more detail that same day.

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In the piece from the Times, Ronald Sullivan wrote, “Several jurors questioned afterward said one holdout juror was principally responsible for preventing them from returning a guilty verdict. ‘We don’t think he intended to kill her,’ said a juror, Asuncion Cummings. ‘But once he did, he dismembered her body in an effort to commit the perfect crime.'”

However, the Daily News detailed the holdout juror to be a man. “One juror won a battle of wills by holding out for an insanity verdict. Another juror accused this panelist, an unemployed man, of wanting to extend his $15-a-day juror’s fee.”

That article also quoted Hostin as saying, ‘Yes, we believe he did it. I believe he butchered the body and almost committed the perfect crime. He knew what he was doing.”

Along with the Daily News at the time, a New York Post report on Thursday found that the Associated Press, Newsday and its own coverage of the trial also identified the holdout juror as the unemployed man.

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Hostin was quoted by Newsday as saying, “We had to compromise,” while reiterating her belief Rakowitz “attempted to commit the perfect crime.”

A law enforcement source said to be familiar with the case confirmed to the Post that “no other description” had been provided about the holdout juror save that he was a man.

While the newspaper noted another Newsday article suggested a second holdout juror, Hostin maintained her story to the Post while laughing at the notion the holdout was a man, “I was. I was the holdout juror.”

As to why someone would side with a guy who bragged that he made a soup of his victim’s brain and fingers, which he himself ate before feeding it to the homeless, reactions to the segment from “The View” and the contradictory receipts suggested, “Like most with a following in the public eye enabling them to be wealthy, Hostin will say or do anything regardless of truth if it will garner more attention and money for her.”

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Kevin Haggerty
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