New York ? An uproar over an apparently pro-defense holdout on the jury brought the grand-larceny case against two former Tyco executives dangerously close to a mistrial Monday before the judge sent the jurors back into deliberations.

“It seems to me that it would be inappropriate to declare a mistrial when all 12 jurors, who have devoted six months of their lives to this trial, are prepared to continue,” Judge Michael Obus said in denying a defense request for a mistrial.

Obus said he had spoken with the juror, a 79-year-old woman who has been identified by name in several news reports, and that she had assured him that “nothing that has happened will, from her point of view, prevent her from deliberating in good conscience with the other jurors.”

After resuming deliberations, jurors sent a note asking to see a company memo, and they asked the judge to repeat some instructions.

“Much water has passed under the bridge since last Thursday, and we would like our recollections refreshed,” the jurors wrote.

They later finished deliberating for the day without reaching a verdict and were to continue today. It was their eighth day of deliberations.

The trial against former Tyco International chief L. Dennis Kozlowski and former chief financial officer Mark Swartz was thrown into turmoil last week when jurors told the judge that the atmosphere in the jury room had become “poisonous.” A note to the judge said the source of the acrimony was a juror who “does not have an open mind” and had “stopped deliberating in a good faith.”

The juror drew intense scrutiny over the weekend when some news organizations reported that she had made an “OK” gesture toward the defense while walking to the jury box Friday.

On Saturday, the New York Post featured a sketch on its front page depicting her making an “OK” gesture. It called the woman “Ms. Trial,” a “paranoid socialite” and a “batty blueblood.”

Exactly what gesture Juror No. 4 made, or whether she intended to make a gesture at all, was still in dispute. Defense lawyers and prosecutors said they had never seen the gesture. An Associated Press reporter witnessed the gesture but did not interpret it as an “OK” sign.

On Monday, while sitting in the jury box, the juror repeatedly brushed at her hair, her fingers crooked.

Regardless of the intent of her gesture, the defense argued that the media coverage — along with the 11 other jurors — had placed unfair pressure on the juror to reach a conviction.