The retrial of Harvey Weinstein ended abruptly Thursday when the jury foreman refused to join the deliberations on the remaining rape charge against the disgraced movie mogul.
New York state Judge Curtis Farber declared a mistrial and prosecutors vowed to try Weinstein again on the charge the jury had been deadlocked on, the third-degree rape charge that accused Weinstein of sexually assaulting former actor Jessica Mann.
The dramatic ending came a day after the jury announced it had unanimously found Weinstein guilty of sexually assaulting one woman and not guilty of assaulting another more than a decade ago. Those verdicts stand.
During the five days of deliberations, the jury foreman had reported to Farber that the jurors were having a hard time reaching a verdict and that several members had been clashing.
Right before the partial verdict was announced Wednesday, the foreman told the court he’d been threatened by another member of the panel who told him, “You know me; you going to see me outside.”
When the jury returned Thursday to resume deliberations on the remaining charge, the jury foreman told Farber he was done.
"Are you willing to go back in today and continue deliberations?" Farber asked.
"No, sorry," the foreman replied.
At that point, Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg moved for a mistrial and asked that Weinstein be retried on the rape charge again.
"If Weinstein wants to own up to the charge, we can have discussion about that," Blumberg said. "But we are ready to retrial for rape in the third degree."
Weinstein attorney Arthur Aidala said that his client had been through enough and that there should be no third trial on that charge.
Farber, however, scheduled a status hearing for July 2.
With the proceeding over, Weinstein left the courtroom in his wheelchair.
"Of course, Mr. Weinstein is disappointed," Aidala said after the proceeding. "He has maintained his innocence from the day I met him in 2019."
One of the male jurors, interviewed outside after the jury was dismissed, said that they were split over the Mann rape allegation and that he was disappointed they couldn't reach a verdict.
"The third count was the hardest one," said the juror, who declined to give his name.
Asked about the foreman's claim that he was threatened, the juror said, "It wasn't as contentious as has been reported."
"It was a conversation," the juror said. "It was an animated conversation."
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg called the women who testified against Weinstein courageous and said his office will continue to pursue the third-degree rape charge.
"This morning, after the judge declared the jury could not reach a verdict on rape in the third degree, we immediately informed the court that we are ready to go forward to trial again on that charge," Bragg said at a news conference.
Mann said in a statement that she wouldn't back down.
“I will never give up on myself and making sure my voice — and the truth — is heard," Mann said. "I have told the District Attorney I am ready, willing and able to endure this as many times as it takes for justice and accountability to be served. Today is not the end of my fight.”
Weinstein found himself on trial again after the state Court of Appeals last year overturned his landmark 2020 conviction for sexually abusing women.
That trial defined the #MeToo movement and helped turn Weinstein, the Oscar-winning former chief of Miramax, into a pariah. But the appeals court found that the judge in that trial had improperly allowed testimony against Weinstein based on allegations that weren't part of the case.
Still, much of the evidence that resulted in Weinstein’s being convicted five years ago of the third-degree rape of one woman and a first-degree criminal sex act against another woman was reintroduced at his retrial.
Just as before, Weinstein pleaded not guilty to a charge of third-degree rape based on complaints by Mann and a charge of first-degree criminal sexual act brought by former “Project Runway” production assistant Miriam Haley.
But this time, Weinstein faced an additional charge of first-degree criminal sexual act in the alleged sexual assault of a Polish former runway model named Kaja Sokola.
Weinstein, 73, denied all the charges, and his lawyers insisted the sexual encounters with his three accusers were “transactional” and “consensual" and accused the three women of being grifters.
On Wednesday, when it became clear that the jury was at loggerheads over Mann, and after the foreman said he felt threatened, Farber told the lawyers that he would ask the jurors whether they’d reached a verdict on some of the counts and that he would instruct them to continue deliberating on any remaining charges.
Aidala immediately objected.
“You have a grown man who has now said that people have told him in the jury room they’ll meet him outside,” Aidala said. “He said it twice.”
But Farber said what the juror was describing was just “schoolyard nonsense.”
At that point, Weinstein made a last-minute plea for a mistrial, saying, “This is not right for me, the person who is on trial here.”
Farber moved forward with his decision, and minutes later, the jurors returned to the courtroom and rendered a partial verdict.
Weinstein was found guilty of criminal sexual act for the 2006 attack on Haley. But he was found not guilty of a second charge of criminal sexual act stemming from allegations brought by Sokola, who told the court he assaulted her, too, in 2006.
