Harvey Weinstein trial ends in mistrial on ultimate rape cost after jury foreman refuses to deliberate

The retrial of Harvey Weinstein ended abruptly Thursday when the jury foreman refused to hitch the deliberations on the remaining rape cost towards the disgraced film mogul.

New York state Decide Curtis Farber declared a mistrial and prosecutors vowed to attempt Weinstein once more on the cost the jury had been deadlocked on, the third-degree rape cost that accused Weinstein of sexually assaulting former actor Jessica Mann.

The dramatic ending got here a day after the jury introduced it had unanimously discovered Weinstein responsible of sexually assaulting one girl and never responsible of assaulting one other greater than a decade in the past. The verdicts on the opposite two counts stand.

After the partial verdict was introduced Wednesday, Mann launched a press release saying, “I might by no means lie about rape or use one thing so traumatic to harm somebody.”

“I didn’t communicate as much as smash his life,” Mann mentioned of Weinstein. “He did that. I spoke as a result of mine issues.”

Weinstein discovered himself on trial once more after the state Court docket of Appeals final yr overturned his landmark 2020 conviction for sexually abusing girls.

That trial outlined the #MeToo motion and helped flip Weinstein, the Oscar-winning former chief of Miramax, right into a pariah. However the appeals courtroom discovered that the decide in that trial had improperly allowed testimony towards Weinstein based mostly on allegations that weren’t a part of the case.

Nonetheless, a lot of the proof that resulted in Weinstein’s being convicted 5 years in the past of the third-degree rape of 1 girl and a first-degree prison intercourse act towards one other girl was reintroduced at his retrial.

Simply as earlier than, Weinstein pleaded not responsible to a cost of third-degree rape based mostly on complaints by Mann, and a cost of first-degree prison sexual act introduced by former “Mission Runway” manufacturing assistant Miriam Haley.

However this time, Weinstein confronted a further cost of first-degree prison sexual act within the alleged sexual assault of a Polish former runway mannequin named Kaja Sokola.

Weinstein, 73, denied all the fees and his attorneys insisted the sexual encounters together with his three accusers have been “transactional” and “consensual” and accused the three girls of being grifters.

In the course of the 5 days of deliberations, the jury foreman had reported to Farber that they have been having a tough time reaching a verdict on the Mann cost and that a number of members had been clashing.

Proper earlier than the partial verdict was unveiled Wednesday, the foreman advised the courtroom he’d been threatened by one other member of the panel who advised him, “You recognize me; you going to see me outdoors.”

“I really feel afraid inside there,” the juror advised Farber, in keeping with a transcript of the dialog provided by the state courtroom. “I can’t be inside there.”

Farber advised the attorneys he would ask the jury in the event that they’d reached a verdict on among the counts and that he would instruct the jury to proceed deliberating on the opposite cost.

Weinstein protection legal professional Arthur Aidala instantly objected.

“You might have a grown man who has now mentioned that folks have advised him within the jury room they’ll meet him outdoors,” Aidala mentioned. “He mentioned it twice.”

However Farber mentioned what the juror was describing was simply “schoolyard nonsense.”

At that time, Weinstein made a last-minute plea for a mistrial, saying, “This isn’t proper for me, the one who is on trial right here.”

Farber moved ahead together with his choice and minutes later, the jurors returned to the courtroom and rendered a partial verdict.

Weinstein was discovered responsible of prison sexual act for the 2006 assault on Haley. However he was discovered not responsible of a second cost of prison sexual act stemming from allegations introduced Sokola, who advised the courtroom he assaulted her, too, in 2006.