New York (AFP) – Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein will face a retrial from April 14 on a rape charge on which a jury previously deadlocked, his publicist said Wednesday. The judge in last year’s sex crimes trial, itself a partial retrial, declared a mistrial after the jury foreperson refused to return to deliberate the case amid a jury room feud.
Weinstein was accused of the third-degree rape of a woman named Jessica Mann and will now face a retrial on that count. In June, the jury convicted Weinstein of sexual assault against Miriam Haley, and acquitted the fallen movie mogul for allegedly sexually assaulting Kaja Sokola. Weinstein, 73, and wheelchair-bound by ill-health, is already in jail for a 16-year term after he was convicted in a separate California case of raping a European actress more than a decade ago.
Weinstein’s spokesman Juda Engelmayer said, “Each time prosecutors have asked a jury to convict Harvey Weinstein on (Mann’s) very allegation, they have come up short of a unanimous decision.” “Mr. Weinstein has always maintained that the relationship was consensual, and we look forward to presenting the evidence again,” Engelmayer added.
The Oscar-winner’s conviction on the Haley charge is a vindication for Haley, whose complaint in part led to the initial guilty verdict in 2020. That landmark case helped spur the “MeToo” movement that saw an outpouring of allegations from prominent women who were abused by men.
Weinstein suffered a spectacular fall from his position at the top of the world of Hollywood and show business in 2017 when allegations against him exploded into public. The movement upended the film industry, exposing systemic exploitation of young women seeking to work in entertainment and provoking a reckoning on how to end the toxic culture. More than 80 women accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct in the wake of the global backlash against men abusing positions of power.
Weinstein’s original 2020 conviction, and the resulting 23-year prison term, was thrown out in 2024 after an appeals court found irregularities in the way witnesses were presented.
© 2024 AFP
