A judge in Manhattan declared a mistrial in a case against Harvey Weinstein after a jury was deadlocked and failed to come to a consensus on a verdict following two days of deliberation on Friday, May 15.
Weinstein, the disgraced former producer currently serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York in Riker’s Island, was on trial for what was now the third time involving a rape accusation from an aspiring actress back in 2013.
The case involved the testimony of a single accuser, Jessica Mann, rather than the testimonies of multiple accusers. And in 2020, Weinstein was convicted on the rape charge, but a judge later overturned the decision. A second trial last year also ended in a deadlocked jury when it came to Mann’s case, and a new trial was ordered for this year. However, that 2025 trial also ended with a split decision in which Weinstein was found guilty of one count of criminal sexual assault against Miriam Haley, a former assistant on “Project Runway,” and not guilty in a charge involving model Kaja Sokola.
The judge in this case, Justice Curtis Farber, said the jury was “hopelessly deadlocked” and dismissed them saying he “didn’t see any reason to go further in deliberations. It’s not meant to be a coercive process.”
It will now be up to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg to determine if he wants to bring the case against Weinstein to trial for a fourth time, after it was Bragg’s predecessor who tried the case the first time around.
Mann in her testimony described planning a morning meeting over a meal with friends and Weinstein, only for him to get a hotel room early after she objected. She alleged that after accompanying him to her room, he injected his penis with medication to give him an erection and then raped her. The case had no physical evidence, and prosecutors hoped that jurors would believe the testimony of Mann over Weinstein.
Weinstein is currently appealing a conviction in a Los Angeles sexual assault case that resulted in a 16-year prison sentence. In March of this year, he gave a wide-ranging interview to THR maintaining his innocence.
“Did I make a pass at some of these women unsuccessfully? Did I overplay my hand? Yes,” Weinstein said. “Was I pushy or overly seductive? Yes to all of that. Look, I should never have gone out with the people I went out with. I was married to a fantastic woman who had no idea what I was doing. I lied all the time. I improperly used my staff to hide these things. But did I ever sexually assault a woman? No. I never did that.”
