Harvey Weinstein jurors return to deliberate rape charge after reaching partial verdict
Editor's Note: The Harvey Weinstein retrial ended in a mistrial Thursday after the jury could not reach a decision on the remaining charge. Read more here.
Harvey Weinstein's retrial in New York isn't over yet. Jurors are resuming deliberations Thursday after reaching only a partial verdict.
Weinstein was found guilty Wednesday of one count of sexual assault and not guilty of another. The jury has yet to reach a verdict on a third charge of rape.
The judge ordered the jury of five men and seven women to return at 10 a.m. Thursday to continue deliberating on that charge.
So far, the sexual assault charge Weinstein has been convicted of carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.
What's going on in Harvey Weinstein's retrial?
The last few days at the courthouse have been full of drama.
On Wednesday, jurors told the judge they found Weinstein guilty of criminal sexual assault against production assistant Miriam Haley, but they did not find him guilty of criminal sexual assault regarding accuser Kaja Sokola.
The partial verdict came after five days of tense deliberations, with jurors sending notes to the judge expressing concerns.
Earlier Wednesday, the jury foreperson told the judge there was infighting going on over the rape count, with one juror allegedly telling another they'd meet them outside one day, as an apparent threat.
Weinstein's defense attorney asked for a mistrial, which the judge denied.
Weinstein himself then said, "This isn't fair. This isn't right. I'm the one on trial. This is my life that's on the line, I am not getting a fair trial. You are endangering me."
Jessica Mann's testimony
The rape charge relates to Weinstein's third accuser, Jessica Mann.
She testified for days, as she did in Weinstein's 2020 trial, alleging he raped her in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013. She said it happened during a consensual relationship that continued for years afterward, telling the jury she "compartmentalized" the pain he caused.
Weinstein's lawyers emphasized she kept seeing him, accepting invitations and sending him messages.
"Rape can happen in relationships — and in dynamics where power and manipulation control the narrative," Mann said in a statement Wednesday.
Weinstein was originally convicted in New York in 2020 of raping Mann and forcing oral sex on Haley. That conviction was overturned last year after the state's highest court ruled the judge should not have allowed testimony from accusers who were not involved in the charges. Sokola's allegation was added later as part of the retrial.
Meanwhile, Weinstein is appealing his 2022 rape conviction in Los Angeles, where he was sentenced to 16 years.
