A Vanity Fair reporter was booted from the jury in a federal murder-for-hire trial after she posted an item on the social media platform X about a “hot FBI agent” who was working the case.
Delia Cai confirmed on her X account that she was removed from the Brooklyn jury in the case against Antony Abreu, a convicted drug trafficker from Queens who allegedly killed a man in 2019 as part of a hit ordered by a Manhattan real estate developer.
Cai wrote in a now-deleted X post on Monday: “didn’t get to see the eclipse bc I’m on federal jury duty but I did get to look at a hot fbi agent.”
The news of Cai’s dismissal from the jury was first reported by the New York Daily News.
In a follow-up post, she wrote: “we’re literally not allowed to talk to each other outside the courtroom … if I say hi he legally has to ignore me… don’t they know this is how I fall in love.”
US District Judge Carol Bagley Amon reprimanded Cai and removed her from the case on Tuesday. Cai subsequently apologized.
In follow-up posts on X, Cai wrote: “anyway so i got kicked out of jury duty for posting about it …. learn from this what you will….”
She also joked: “judge said girl go to horny jail :/”
Cai told the Daily News that she didn’t think her post would run afoul of any rules.
“I’ve never served jury duty before. I never interacted with the criminal justice system,” she said.
“I think I went in pretty naively.”
Cai said it “was not my intention to make light of something as serious as a murder trial.”
She attributed the incident to “posting disease,” saying: “I’m sure if I thought about it for five minutes, I would have understood that that was hugely inappropriate.”
“In this case I made a really bad internet joke, and there were consequences.”
The Post has sought comment from Cai.
Cai was chosen to serve on the jury hearing the Abreu case in Brooklyn federal court.
Federal prosecutors charged Abreu in the killed of Xin “Chris” Gu outside a Queens karaoke bar in February 2019.
Abreu allegedly was hired to carry out the hit by his former boss, Qing Ming “Allen ” Yu.
Yu, who was convicted in the murder-for-hire plot last fall, allegedly sought revenge against Gu — his former protege and project manager — after he started his own business and poached several of his clients.