On Thursday evening the lawyer for the Lindsay Clancy holdout juror said every online fundraiser claiming to help his client was “100% FAKE,” or at best unauthorized. By Friday night he had named one of them the “authorized and official fundraising home” for his client. By Sunday evening that campaign, a GiveSendGo page called “Stand With the Juror,” had passed $361,000, according to the Boston Herald, and the lawyer said “0% (ZERO) will go to lawyers.”
We reported the Thursday statement on Friday morning under a headline saying the lawyer called every fundraiser fake. That was accurate when published and is no longer the position. This piece sets out what changed, what is now known about the money, and the questions a six-figure gift to a discharged juror raises in Massachusetts, which are fewer than people assume and different from the ones being argued about online.
What changed, in order
Thursday, September 17, 6:20 p.m. Attorney Edward Andrew Paltzik, who has represented President Trump in litigation against CBS and other media companies, announced on X that he represents the “courageous and heroic lone holdout juror,” described him as an “American Hero and Champion of Justice,” and said he was at “an undisclosed secure location in a rural area of Northern New England.”
Thursday, 6:41 p.m. A second post: “Any and All GiveSendGo or GoFundMe accounts that purport to be operating on behalf of our courageous lone holdout juror American Hero and Champion of Justice are 100% FAKE, or at minimum, were created by well-meaning individuals who we are not yet in touch with.” He said his side was “in the process of arranging for appropriate and proper measures.”
Friday, September 18, early morning. Paltzik thanked one organizer by name, Tom Hennessey, for “his noteworthy efforts to fundraise for and support our Heroic Holdout,” said “unauthorized does not in any way mean unappreciated,” and promised that “later today, we will be establishing an authorized, consolidated, and official fundraiser.”
Friday, 8:57 p.m. The reversal. Addressing Hennessey and Jacob Wells, a co-founder of GiveSendGo, Paltzik wrote: “on behalf of Michael, I extend our deepest gratitude for the conversations with both of you today and the subsequent actions taken to ensure that he will directly receive 100% of the money raised.” He continued: “‘Stand With the Juror’ will remain the place to go, and moving forward is the authorized and official fundraising home for our American Hero and Champion of Justice.” That post used the juror’s first name. The Herald reported that Paltzik identified him in full as Michael Peguy Desronvil the same day.
Sunday, September 20. The Herald reported the campaign at just over $361,000. Its page reads: “If they come for him, and they will, this is to cover security, lawyers, and lost work.” Paltzik said the money would “cover necessities in the wake of the death threats, doxxing, and harassment by the lunatic mob that he has so courageously withstood.”
The campaign was started after the September 4 mistrial by supporters, before the juror had a lawyer or a public name. When we first reported it on September 15 it stood at about $150,000. It has more than doubled since the juror’s name became public.
Who controls the money
The organizer does, until it is paid out. A GiveSendGo campaign is run by whoever created it; the platform pays the organizer, and the organizer decides where it goes. That is the structural reason Paltzik’s first instinct was to call every page unauthorized: a page in a stranger’s name is a promise by the stranger, not by the beneficiary.
What changed on Friday was that Paltzik reached the organizer and the platform’s co-founder directly and obtained what he described as “actions taken to ensure that he will directly receive 100%.” The mechanics of that arrangement have not been described. The most common form is for the platform to redirect payouts to the beneficiary’s own account. Nothing filed in any court touches it.
A personal fundraiser for a named individual is not a charity. The Attorney General’s oversight of charitable solicitation does not reach it, and donors get no tax deduction. The only legal constraint on the organizer is the ordinary one: a person who solicits money on a false promise commits fraud, and Massachusetts consumer protection law reaches deceptive solicitations. That is the exposure the other, still-unauthorized pages carry.
Is it income to the juror
No. Money given out of generosity to a person, with nothing expected in return, is a gift, and federal tax law excludes gifts from the recipient’s income. Crowdfunded gifts to individuals are treated the same way. The IRS has said that a platform may issue a tax form when payouts cross a reporting threshold, but a form is not a tax, and a gift remains a gift. Donors above the annual exclusion amount could in theory owe gift tax, which is why campaigns of this size are made up of thousands of small contributions rather than a few large ones.
Does it matter to the criminal case
This is the question that draws the most heat and has the shortest answer. It does not.
The juror was discharged on September 4. A discharged juror is a private citizen. He may speak, he may accept gifts, and he may hire a lawyer who says whatever he likes about him. No rule of criminal procedure and no ethics rule reaches money given to a former juror after a mistrial. The Massachusetts rule that limits post-verdict inquiry into what happened in the jury room, Commonwealth v. Fidler, 377 Mass. 192 (1979), concerns whether a court will hear evidence about deliberations to impeach a verdict. There is no verdict here to impeach.
If Lindsay Clancy is retried, it will be before twelve different people, none of whom will have been on a GiveSendGo page. The pending motions before Judge William Sullivan on September 29, on double jeopardy and on the defense request for a required finding, do not depend on anything about the holdout. We explained the double-jeopardy motion, and why it faces a settled rule that a hung jury does not bar retrial, in our earlier piece.
There is one indirect connection. Judge Sullivan impounded the jurors’ names indefinitely after finding “there have been threats made to at least one juror.” The juror’s own lawyer has now published his client’s name and his statement. That does not lift the order as to the other eleven, whose identities remain sealed. It does make the order moot as to the one person it was most obviously written to protect.
What the juror has said
Only one statement, released through NewsNation on Thursday: “I didn’t have any doubts. As I tried to explain different possible theories during deliberation, I kept getting cut off as if I had doubts based on the evidence present. Based on all the physical evidence, key witnesses, and what the prosecution presents, I thought it was enough proof that she knew exactly what she was doing and planned.” Paltzik has said his client will give no interviews: “None. Zero.”
The eleven jurors who favored a finding of not criminally responsible have described him as unwilling to engage. Both accounts are of a conversation the law deliberately keeps private, and neither can be tested.
What to watch
Whether the platform or the organizer publishes any accounting of disbursements. Whether the unauthorized pages Paltzik disclaimed come down. Whether Paltzik, who has promised that “the evil people who have so viciously attacked” his client “will be held accountable to the maximum extent of the law and beyond,” files anything. And September 29, when the criminal case resumes with or without the juror in the news.
Is the Stand With the Juror fundraiser legitimate?
The juror’s lawyer said on the night of September 18 that it is the authorized and official fundraiser and that his client will receive 100% of the proceeds. He had called all fundraisers fake the previous evening.
How much has the Clancy holdout juror fundraiser raised?
Just over $361,000 as of Sunday evening, September 20, according to the Boston Herald.
Does the juror pay tax on the money?
No. Gifts are excluded from the recipient’s income under federal tax law, and crowdfunded gifts to an individual are treated as gifts.
Can a juror accept money after a trial?
Yes. A discharged juror is a private citizen. No rule of procedure or ethics restricts gifts to a former juror, and the money has no effect on any retrial.
Are the other fundraisers fake?
The lawyer’s position is that only Stand With the Juror is authorized. He said some other pages were created by well-meaning people and others were scams.
Attorney Paltzik’s statements quoted from his posts on X of September 17 and 18, 2026, retrieved directly. Fundraiser total, page language and the juror’s identification from the Boston Herald, September 20, 2026; the juror’s statement as released to NewsNation and reported by the Herald and Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Commonwealth v. Fidler verified on CourtListener. Tax treatment stated at the level of general federal rules; consult a tax professional for any specific situation. This article corrects the headline characterization in our September 18 report, which has been updated. General information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice.