The potential juror in seat No. 5 played down his résumé when the judge asked him about his occupation during jury selection on Tuesday for an assault trial. “I manage a company,” he said, “a financial information company.”

The juror, Michael R. Bloomberg, did not mention that he had been mayor of New York City for three terms, nor that the company in question was Bloomberg L.P., the market research and news giant that he founded.

Mr. Bloomberg participated on Tuesday in one of the great leveling rites of American democracy: jury service. In the end, he was rejected for a panel chosen to try the case of Wan Li, a 55-year-old woman accused of assaulting a man in Chinatown. A prosecutor asked that Mr. Bloomberg be dismissed because he said he had travel plans on Friday. The defense quickly agreed.

The dismissal came after a long day during which the former mayor waited patiently with other potential jurors in State Supreme Court in Manhattan as Justice Laura A. Ward and lawyers for both sides went through the tedious process of choosing a jury.