Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial led to a mistrial Friday after the jury deadlocked. That is the third trial for the New York rape case.
Weinstein, whose decades-long historical past of alleged sexual assault upended the leisure business and impressed the #MeToo motion, has been convicted of different intercourse crimes in New York and Los Angeles and is incarcerated in a Rikers Island facility in Queens. In accordance with the Related Press, Weinstein appeared expressionless after the mistrial was introduced and courtroom officers escorted him out in his wheelchair.
A majority-male jury spent three days deliberating the rape cost in opposition to Weinstein. Jessica Mann, a hairstylist and aspiring actor, mentioned the rape occurred at a Manhattan DoubleTree resort in 2013. Weinstein’s protection argued that the sexual encounter between Mann and the then-married Weinstein was consensual.
Weinstein was initially convicted of assaulting Mann in 2020, however that verdict, together with one other cost, was overturned in April 2024. In a second New York trial final summer time, Weinstein was convicted of forcing oral intercourse on Miriam Haley and acquitted of the identical concerning former mannequin Kaja Sokola. The jury was held on a 3rd cost of raping Mann.
On Friday, a number of hours into the third day of deliberations, jurors despatched Choose Curtis Farber a notice saying they “have concluded that they can not attain” a unanimous verdict. Choose Farber instructed the group to proceed deliberating. Jurors returned to their closed-door discussions and emerged greater than an hour later with one other notice, studying, “We really feel that nobody goes to alter the place they stand.”
A listening to was set for June 24 to be taught whether or not prosecutors will go to a fourth trial for the rape cost.
Marc Agnifilo, the high-profile felony protection lawyer employed by Weinstein earlier this 12 months and recognized for representing Luigi Mangione and Sean “Diddy” Combs, informed The Occasions in an emailed assertion, “We’re assured the DA is not going to pursue a fourth trial of those demonstrably meritless allegations.”
District Legal professional Alvin L. Bragg mentioned in a press release that his workplace will take into account subsequent steps in “session with Ms. Mann, and in consideration of Harvey Weinstein’s pending sentencing following final 12 months’s trial conviction for forcibly sexually assaulting Miriam Haley.”
“For almost a decade, Jessica Mann has fought for justice. Over the course of many weeks throughout three separate trials, she relived unthinkably painful experiences in entrance of full strangers,” Bragg mentioned. “Her perseverance and bravado are inspiring to the members of my workplace, and extra importantly, to survivors all over the place.”
Mann informed The Occasions in an emailed assertion that Friday’s resolution to declare a mistrial “doesn’t in any method detract from the reality I informed and the violent crimes Harvey Weinstein dedicated upon me and so many others.”
Mann mentioned she selected to testify in three trials as a result of she is telling the reality.
“For years I’ve needed to relive among the hardest moments of my life whereas dealing with makes an attempt to disgrace, humiliate and discredit me in open courtroom,” Mann continued. “I submitted myself to the very best requirements, transparency, and accountability in coming ahead via the justice system — selecting integrity even when the method flayed me open.
“The ability of predators stays too nice. I deserve justice, which is why I get up and face insufferable public scrutiny within the identify of a higher good — a world the place predators should not in energy.”
