Sunny Hostin falsely claims she was 'holdout' juror that kept cannibalistic 'Butcher of Tompkins Square Park' killer out of prison

Sunny Hostin, one of "The View" hosts, falsely claimed to be a holdout juror who kept a murderous cannibal who killed his roommate and boiled her head out of prison by reason of insanity in 1991. The holdout juror in the case was a man, according to reporting from the New York Daily News at the time. 

She made the comment as the hosts were talking about the holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy case, who was the only member of the jury that said Clancy should be held criminally responsible for killing her children. Clancy's case ended in a mistrial due to a hung jury. 

While discussing the case, Hostin claimed to be the holdout juror for "The Butcher of Tompkins Square Park" case, where the suspect, Daniel Rakowitz, slaughtered and then cooked the body parts of his roommate in 1989. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity. 

“The insanity defense has been around in Massachusetts for 182 years, so I think it’s well-established. And I thought absolutely that she was not criminally responsible by reason of insanity,” Hostin said of the Clancy case. “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. It was in 1991."

Fellow host Joy Behar replied, “The guy who ate the victims?”

Hostin confirmed and said, "Yes." 

Other hosts on the panel were taken aback by the comment. Hostin went on to read from a New York Times article about the case. 

“Several jurors questioned afterwards said one holdout juror was principally responsible for preventing them from returning a guilty verdict,” she read. “That was me, and 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 her body parts, tried to commit the perfect crime."

Fellow host Alyssa Farah Griffin asked in disbelief, “And you got this guy off?” 

“That’s how much I believe in the insanity defense, and he fed her body parts to the unhoused,” Hostin added. “All that being said, it was so clear to me in the jury room. And we were sequestered for nine days, one juror threw a chair at me. They were so angry with me but one by one I picked them off and said, ‘What about this? What about that?’ and we ended up, all 12, unanimously voting that he was not criminally responsible by reason of insanity. But he is still in a mental institution being treated."

However, according to the New York Daily News, the holdout juror in the case was reported to be "an unemployed man." The article from the outlet also reported Hostin, born Asunción Cummings, as saying about the killer, "He knew what he was doing."

Rakowitz had boiled her body parts and then used them in a soup that he said he fed to the homeless.