THE NEW YORK TIMES: Harvey Weinstein’s New York rape trial declared mistrial as jury unable to reach verdict

NEW YORK — A judge in New York City declared a mistrial Friday after the jury in Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial was unable to reach a verdict on the charge that the disgraced Hollywood producer raped an aspiring actress in a hotel room in 2013.

It’s the second time a jury has not been able to reach a verdict on this charge.

The jury had deliberated for more than two days.

In 2020, Weinstein first went on trial and was convicted of raping the aspiring actress, Jessica Mann. But the verdict was overturned, and in a second trial last year, the jury deadlocked on the rape count. The judge overseeing the case, Justice Curtis Farber of state Supreme Court in Manhattan, ordered a new trial.

On Friday, Farber said it was “quite clear” that the jurors were “hopelessly deadlocked.”

Around 1:15 p.m., he told the jurors that he didn’t “see any reason to go further in deliberations. It’s not meant to be a coercive process.”

He dismissed the jury.

The accusations against Weinstein nearly a decade ago had catalyzed activism across the globe. Once an influential Hollywood producer, he was seen as emblematic of the scores of powerful men who lost their jobs after public allegations of misconduct.

Weinstein’s first New York conviction in 2020, which resulted in a 23-year prison sentence, was seen as a watershed moment in the #MeToo movement.

He was later convicted of sexual assault in a separate Los Angeles case and sentenced to 16 years in prison there. He is appealing that case.

But since those trials, public attention and interest in the #MeToo movement has seemed to wane.

This trial was the first time prosecutors had presented the story of only one accuser and asked the jury, in a case with no physical evidence, to believe the testimony of Mann over Weinstein’s denials.

In 2013, Mann said, she was visiting New York and had planned a morning meal with friends and Weinstein, but he had arrived early and got a hotel room over her objections.

After she accompanied him to the room, she testified, he injected his penis with medication that produced an erection and then raped her.

Over five days of testimony this year, Mann told her account for the third time.

The hung jury on Friday means that Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, will now have to decide whether his office will try Weinstein for a fourth time. The case was first tried under his predecessor.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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