By JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein ’s rape retrial ended in a mistrial Friday after the jury deadlocked in the closely watched #MeToo-era case that another jury failed to decide last year.
While the former Hollywood mogul has been convicted of other sex crimes on two U.S. coasts and remains behind bars, the mistrial leaves the New York rape charge in limbo after three trials. Weinstein appeared expressionless as court officers ushered him out in his wheelchair.
A majority-male Manhattan jury had been weighing whether Weinstein raped Jessica Mann, a hairstylist and actor. Weinstein’s lawyers argued that the encounter was consensual. It happened in 2013 during a fraught relationship between the then-married Weinstein and the decades-younger Mann.
The signs of stalemate emerged Friday a few hours into the third day of deliberations. Jurors sent a note saying they “have concluded that they cannot reach” a unanimous verdict. Judge Curtis Farber instructed the group to continue deliberating. That’s generally what New York judges do at least the first time a jury says it’s stuck.
A hearing was set for June 24 to learn whether prosecutors will choose to go to a fourth trial.
An appeals court overturned his 2020 New York conviction on charges that involved Mann and another accuser. At a retrial last year, jury deliberations broke down amid infighting on Mann’s portion of the case, leading to this current retrial. Weinstein is charged with one count of rape in the third degree.
Mann, 40, has testified that she willingly had some sexual interludes with the then-married producer, but that he subjected her to unwanted sex that day after she repeatedly said no.
Weinstein’s lawyers have emphasized that Mann subsequently continued seeing Weinstein after the encounter and expressing warmth toward him. Mann has said she was mired in complicated feelings about him, herself and what had happened.
Her viewpoint changed in 2017, when a series of allegations against the Oscar-winning Weinstein propelled #MeToo. Some of those accusations generated criminal convictions against Weinstein in New York and California.
Weinstein, 74, has said he “acted wrongly” but never assaulted anyone.
The current jury heard nearly three weeks of testimony, five days of it from Mann. Weinstein did not testify.
The Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted. Mann, however, has agreed to be named.