LAS VEGAS — Deliberations in the Margaret Rudin murder trial continued their spin out of control Tuesday as the prosecutors and fellow jurors leveled a new round of misconduct charges at the lone holdout against conviction.

For a second day in a row, the jury ceased weighing evidence while Judge Joseph Bonaventure confronted the woman about accusations of impropriety and lying. And, for a second day in a row, the judge permitted her to remain on the jury over the strenuous objections of prosecutors.

"(T)here's a juror in there that is a flake," Prosecutor Chris Owens told the judge, according to transcripts of a closed-door hearing Tuesday morning. He brushed off defense suggestions that the state wanted to get rid of the woman, who wants to acquit Rudin, solely to win a conviction. "This is not about one against 11, it's about a juror who has violated her oath and engaged in other misconduct."

Among the charges hurled Tuesday were the foreman's claims that the juror refused to listen to others, "glared" at him when he asked for her thoughts, was overly concerned about the defendant's welfare, reneged on a guilty vote and may have concealed parts of her background during jury selection.

"Juror #11 isn't thinking clearly, rationally or logically. Please help!" the foreman wrote Tuesday in a bid for the judge to intervene.

The prosecution added its own beef — a suspicion that the juror spoke to a relative about deliberations and that family member had posted the information on Court TV's message boards.

Rudin's defense fought tooth-and-nail to keep juror #11, a middle-aged nurse and mother of three who they described as a heroine of the justice system, on the jury while simultaneously arguing that the panel was hopelessly deadlocked.

"You can't throw jurors off because you don't like the way they vote. I think it's outrageous what is happening to this juror," said defense lawyer Tom Pitaro. "We believe this jury is hung."

The defense renewed the motion for a mistrial they made Monday when juror #11 admitted calling an alternate to discuss the case over the weekend. On Tuesday, they learned that Rudin had even more to gain from a mistrial than she believed Monday.

Then, the alternate related that juror #11 claimed the vote was 11 to 1 in favor of conviction, but Tuesday the foreman revealed in a note that the vote was not as previously thought for murder, but for the much lesser charge of accessory to murder. He said even juror #11 had briefly agreed to a conviction on this charge, but then changed her mind.

A murder conviction carries a life sentence while an accessory conviction would bring only one to five years in prison. If the jury deadlocks on the lesser charge, Rudin could be retried only on accessory, not murder charges.

Rudin, a 57-year-old former socialite, is accused of killing her millionaire husband Ron in 1994 to get at his $11 million fortune. She claims her fifth husband was slain by shady business associates. She fled the murder charges and lived as a fugitive in Mexico, Arizona and Massachusetts for two years during which the television show America's Most Wanted dubbed her the Black Widow.

Despite the news that jurors did not believe the prosecution had proven its case for murder, Pitaro was fuming as he left court Tuesday afternoon. He claimed he had never seen so much detailed information about deliberations released while the jury was still weighing evidence and said "the sanctity of the jury system" had been violated.

"It's being played out in public, and it shouldn't have been," said Pitaro. "It appears to be infringing on the integrity of the jury process."

Even Judge Bonaventure seemed to agree, telling jurors in his decision not to send him any more updates about deliberations or vote counts.

But the personal life of juror #11 took center stage Tuesday after the foreman wrote a letter to the judge expressing concern that a domestic violence incident in the woman's past might cloud her impartiality. The foreman said the woman had become "very emotional" during deliberations as she "recalled a time when her police husband held a gun to her head."

"He was found not guilty in a court, and she remains bitter," the foreman wrote.

Prosecutors seized on the allegation, pointing out that the woman claimed during jury selection that she was never a victim of crime, nor had anyone in her family been arrested.

Bonaventure questioned her in his chambers Tuesday morning, and the woman maintained she was being truthful. She described a "hostage" incident in Pittsburgh, where she and her estranged husband of 22 years then lived. She said her husband, a narcotics detective and the father of her children, held her for 3 1/2 hours in her sister's home threatening to kill himself.

She described the incident as a "desperate" attempt at reconciliation, and claimed he never pointed the gun at her. She told Bonaventure that he was never arrested because the police, including the chief, who responded to the incident knew him.

After listening to her account, Bonaventure ruled, "Based on what the court has before it at this time, this Court finds that Juror #11 did not intentionally conceal information from the court."

She was sent back into the jury room, and about 1:30 p.m. the panel was told to begin working toward a verdict. Notes from the jurors paint that work as frustrating and emotional battle between the woman and her colleagues.

According to the foreman, she "is under severe distress" because she lost her job as a nurse during the trial and then had an upsetting verbal altercation with the bailiff over the smoking policy the day of closing arguments.

He said that she cried when the panel reached the accessory verdict, and then the next morning greeted him in the parking garage by saying she had changed her mind and "will vote not guilty from here on out."

In her own letter to the judge, the woman writes, "The fact that my decision is not in alliance with my fellow jurors should never compromise my right as a juror."

Her strong character was of no surprise to Marshall Hennington, a California jury consultant who helped the defense select a panel. He said he remembered her well even after nine weeks of the trial.

"She's a very courageous person to hold firm to her belief," said Hennington, who claimed he pushed for her to be on the jury because her body language, eye contact and tone of voice suggested someone who "questioned authority."

The consultant refused to say more, but noted that he was flying to Las Vegas Tuesday afternoon to assist in the case.

The jury deliberated for seven hours Tuesday until 8:30 p.m. PT. Over four days of deliberations, the jury has met for 25 hours and 55 minutes. The panel will return to the courthouse for a fifth day of deliberations on Wednesday.