An Ohio jeweler who won a $3.8 million verdict against a diamond trading company for stealing a rare pink diamond used “inflammatory” stereotypes of Hasidic Jews to prejudice the jury, the defense says in a motion for a new trial.

John Stafford

Julius Klein Diamonds, like many dealers in New York City's jewelry district, is run by Hasidic Jews. A jury found JKD liable in November for conversion and criminal theft of the 5.56 carat pink diamond that jeweler John Stafford says he shipped to its office with the Brink's security company –- but JKD insists does not exist.

According to the new trial motion, “Religion was first injected into the trial in voir dire, when Plaintiffs’ counsel asked prospective jurors about their attitudes toward Hasidic Jews” and resurfaced when Stafford “gratuitously inserted overtly racist remarks (allegedly made by others) during his testimony.”

Among other things, he quoted a JKD employee in California as saying that he should send diamonds to him because JKD would “cheat a goy[ ] but never a Jew.”

“In a case in which the jury could find for Plaintiffs only by rejecting the testimony of every eye witness to the events that transpired upon the delivery of the Brinks bag in New York ... the injection of inflammatory evidence intended to stereotype and degrade members of a particular religious group mandates a new trial,” JKD argues.

Stafford claimed he sent the diamond to JKD for valuation after buying it from a mysterious German for only $8,000. But JKD employees testified there was only an empty box inside the Brink's package that arrived in New York and an investigation by Brink's showed the package had not been opened or tampered with before it was delivered.

The defense has already gotten some post-trial relief. In a May 13 order, U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Rose threw out the $2.3 million award on the criminal theft claim, leaving intact the $1.7 million for conversion and $8,400 for unjust enrichment.

Stafford, he ruled, had failed to present any evidence “regarding the retail value of the Pink Diamond when Stafford Jewelers and John Stafford sent it to JKD.” The plaintiff's experts testified only that the wholesale value of the pink diamond was $1.5 to $1.7 million.

But JKD contends that Stafford lied about the shipment of the diamond as part of an insurance scam and is now seeking to have the entire case thrown out, in part because “Plaintiffs injected inflammatory testimony calculated to incite bias and prejudice as a substitute for evidence.”

The new trial motion also cites Stafford's testimony that the mysterious German accused him of being Jewish, saying “Jews always want a better price.” “Stafford’s 'defense' to this accusation was equally inflammatory, informing the jury 'First of all, I’m not Jewish. I’m just a good Catholic kid working hard for a living,'” the defense says.

In other grounds for a new trial, it argues that “virtually every fact that the jury had to find in order to return its multi-million dollar verdict in favor of Plaintiffs runs contrary to common sense and logic.”

The acts of JKD employees “were uniformly consistent with the opening of an empty box,” the defense insists. “JKD routinely handles deliveries of jewelry worth millions of dollars. It would have no incentive to jeopardize its business by converting a single gem.”

By Matthew Heller
6/3/09