Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more!
NY Socialite Who Killed Autistic Son With Lethal Combo Of Pills In 2010 Could Be Freed
“If it becomes necessary, we will re-try Ms. Jordan for the premeditated killing of Jude Mirra, her 8-year-old son,” the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said after Gigi Jordan’s conviction was overturned.
A multimillionaire pharmacy executive convicted of fatally poisoning her son with prescription medication in a luxury Manhattan hotel in 2010 may be released from prison pending a new trial.
An appellate court ruled on Wednesday that Gigi Jordan, the New York socialite sentenced to 18 years in 2015 for the February 2010 death of her son, should be freed from prison, court documents show.
“Jordan has already served some 11 years of her sentence, more than 70 percent of her likely provisional sentence; and the State does not argue that Jordan will pose a danger to the public if released,” according to the one-page court order obtained by Oxygen.com.
Jordan’s legal team successfully argued that the original trial judge, who initially sealed the case, had denied Jordan’s Sixth Amendment right to a “speedy and public” trial, the New York Times reported. In September, a federal judge ordered a new trial.
“The trial court’s closure of the courtroom was deliberate, over the multiple, strenuous objections of Jordan’s counsel, and was a closure that the trial court in fact acknowledged after the fact may well have been erroneous,” Manhattan Federal Magistrate Judge Sarah Cave wrote in court papers, the Daily News reported.
Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance attempted to block Jordan’s release, but the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately split with prosecutors.
"Our Office strenuously disagrees with the grant of habeas in this case, which misapprehends the applicable law, and if it becomes necessary, we will re-try Ms. Jordan for the premeditated killing of Jude Mirra, her 8-year-old son,” Danny Frost, a spokesperson for Vance’s office, told Oxygen.com on Monday.
Jordan’s former defense attorney Ron Kuby declined to comment on the court order pending her potential release.
In 2010, paramedics found Jude Mirra lying face up and unresponsive on a bed at the five-star Peninsula Hotel in Manhattan, the New York Times reported. Pill bottles were scattered across the room. Jordan confessed to forcing the boy, who was diagnosed with severe autism and only spoke a few words, to ingest a deadly combination of vodka and medication. Then she downed a fistful of Xanax pills in a suicide attempt, the Times reported.
The pharmacy executive was subsequently charged with murder.
Jordan admitted to poisoning her son, claiming she was afraid for her life and what would happen to the child in the event of her death.
“That was my intent, was to die that night,” Jordan told WCBS-TV in 2014. “I had no reason to live after Jude’s death...My soul died that night.”
Jordan claimed that she feared that her first husband would kill her and that her son would be handed over to her second husband, a Bulgarian yoga instructor who she said had sexually abused the boy.
“I wanted him to be safe and at peace at any cost,” she told WCBS-TV.
Both men have denied Jordan’s accusations, according to the Times. Neither was ever charged with a crime.
During her trial, prosecutors painted Jordan as cold and calculating, alleging she transferred $125,000 from her son’s trust account into one of her business accounts as the young boy was overdosing in the hotel room, the New York Post reported.
Jordan soon earned the moniker “killer mom” in tabloids as the case made national news. In 2015, she was convicted of first-degree manslaughter.
“No one — and particularly no child — deserves the type of death that Jude Mirra suffered at the hands of his mother,” Vance said at the time. “The poisoning and killing of an 8-year-old boy is a premeditated act of child abuse. After five years, justice has finally been served with today’s sentence of 18 years in state prison.”
Jordan, who has chronic respiratory asthma, turns 60 this month, according to separate court documents. She was worth approximately $50 million prior to her murder trial, according to the Times. The native Belgian made her fortune in pharmaceutical companies that dealt in cancer drugs, then began investing in real estate, according to the New York Post.
Jordan’s provisional release date was originally scheduled for July 5, 2025. She’s expected to appear in federal court this week for a bail hearing.
