Chaos within the jury room led a choose Thursday to name a mistrial for the one remaining cost in opposition to disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, a rape allegation by one-time actress Jessica Mann a day after he was discovered responsible of sexually assault in his Manhattan retrial.
After an eight-week trial in Manhattan Supreme Courtroom, jurors discovered Weinstein, 73, responsible of legal intercourse act in opposition to former TV manufacturing assistant Miriam Haley, however acquitted him of the identical cost in opposition to a second accuser, Polish mannequin Kaja Sokola.
However the jury couldn’t attain a choice on the third accuser, one-time actress Jessica Mann, and the jury foreman refused to rejoin his fellow jurors after reporting Wednesday that he felt threatened by one in every of them telling him he’d “see me outside.”
The mistrial means prosecutors should resolve whether or not to pursue Mann’s allegations at a 3rd trial, once more subjecting her to days of direct testimony and cross-examination on the witness stand. Mann testified at Weinstein’s 2020 trial as nicely.
Witness Jessica Mann arrives for the retrial of former movie producer Harvey Weinstein at Manhattan Legal Courtroom on Might 21, 2025 in New York Metropolis. (Photograph by John Angelillo-Pool/Getty Photos)
Deliberations went off the skids when it got here to Mann, with the jury foreman asking on three separate events to talk to the choose and attorneys away from his fellow jurors.
The foreman on Wednesday advised Manhattan Supreme Courtroom Justice Curtis Farber that one other juror had threatened him, “You gonna see me outside” throughout a shouting match, as a result of he wouldn’t change his place.
That led to requires a mistrial by Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, who stated the juror was the sufferer of against the law and the choose ought to name 911.
Farber launched the jury for the day and requested them to return Thursday, however not earlier than asking if that they had reached a verdict in any of the fees — and so they had, relating to Haley and Sokola.
Later, the foreman advised Farber that the jury had reached a choice on Haley and Sokola days earlier, on Friday, and their determination was unanimous. When the choose requested him if he’d been coerced, he stated “no,” and responded, “My own decision.”
The foreman stated he’d be keen to return to the court docket constructing, however didn’t decide to rejoining his fellow jurors within the jury room.
Mann accused Weinstein of raping her in 2013, however stated she maintained an advanced relationship with the movie producer for years after. Haley and Sokola stated Weinstein forcibly carried out oral intercourse on them in separate incidents in 2006.
Former movie producer Harvey Weinstein seems in court docket for his retrial because the jury deliberates at Manhattan Legal Courtroom on June 10, 2025 in New York Metropolis. (Photograph by Michael Nagle-Pool/Getty Photos)
Weinstein was charged with third-degree rape relating to Mann, which is punishable by as much as 4 years in jail.
The legal intercourse act cost he was convicted up is a much more critical offense, and carries a most 25-year sentence. Legal intercourse act, which was referred to as sodomy, entails compelled anal or oral intercourse.
Mann and Haley additionally took the stand in Weinstein’s 2020 trial, which led to a responsible verdict and a 23-year jail sentence. However final 12 months, the New York State Courtroom of Appeals overturned that conviction, saying the trial choose ought to have by no means allowed different ladies whose allegations weren’t included within the expenses to testify in opposition to him and set up a sample of predatory habits.
Whatever the trial’s end result, Weinstein wasn’t going to go free — he was sentenced to 16 years behind bars after his conviction at a 2022 trial in Los Angeles on separate rape and sexual assault expenses.
