Harvey Weinstein was convicted Wednesday on one charge of first-degree sexual assault in his New York retrial, and acquitted on a second. The jury was ordered to continue deliberating on a third count, a lesser charge of third-degree rape – even as the reported chaos in the jury room continued.
The panel found Weinstein guilty of forcibly subjecting former “Project Runway” production assistant Miriam Haley to a sex act in 2006, and acquitted him of a second charge of sexually assaulting former model Kaja Sokola, also in 2006. It could not reach a unanimous verdict on a third-degree rape involving Jessica Mann in 2013, and was sent back for more debate.
After the partial verdict was read, Weinstein took the unusual step of asking to address the court, which the judge allowed: “My life is on the line, and you know what? It’s not fair,” he said. “It’s time, it’s time, it’s time, it’s time to say this trial is over.”
The third-degree rape charge carries a lesser penalty than the first-degree criminal sex act offenses under New York state law. The convicted charge carries a maximum penalty of seven years, though Weinstein’s sentence will ultimately be dependent on the outcome of the charge involving Mann.
The panel of seven women and five men – the first female-skewed jury that Weinstein faced across three trials – began deliberating late last week. By Monday, after three days of deliberations, jurors signaled that they were struggling with issues both legal and interpersonal, reporting infighting and the consideration of improper evidence.
The foreperson had told the judge that some jurors were ganging up on others and pushing them to change their minds based on information that was not presented in court – the very issue that triggered the retrial after an appeals court ruled in Weinstein’s favor last year.
The trouble in the jury room continued through Wednesday, as the foreperson again told Judge Curtis Farber that he was concerned about ongoing heated arguments, indicating he did not wish to change his position and was still being bullied. After another closed-door discussion, Farber told the court that “[the foreperson] did indicate that at least one other juror made comments to the effect of ‘I’ll meet you outside one day,’ and there’s yelling and screaming,” according to the Associated Press.
Despite the turmoil, Farber re-instructed the jury, Mann’s testimony was re-read and the panel was sent back for more deliberations, which the judge said would resume Thursday.
Mann, whose accusations were the basis of the charge still under consideration, released a lengthy statement on Wednesday after the partial verdict was read.
“I would never lie about rape or use something so traumatic to hurt someone,” she said. “Rape can happen in relationships – and in dynamics where power and manipulation control the narrative. Some victims survive by appeasing, and many carry deep empathy, even for their abusers. That’s part of the trap.”
Mann noted that she has studied consent law “to protect both victims and the wrongly accused,” and has advocated for men, adding that she never pursued a civil lawsuit against Weinstein, even though it would have surely led to a damage award or settlement.
“I waived liability because I only ask for accountability,” she said. “Even in my dynamic with Harvey – the lack of a ‘seductress’ is under-discussed and the evidence that usually follows a person with those intentions. The smear campaign built around me is hollow. The evidence doesn’t exist because the propaganda isn’t real.”
She said while Weinstein “hides behind PR firms, lawyers, spy agencies contracted to intimidate,” she’s only had her voice.
“Abusers pre-select their victims – not just for vulnerability, but for how easily the world is ready to discredit them. For how ‘believable’ their destruction will be. They pick people society already doubts. People they think no one will miss. Then, when the damage is done, they bury the crime in the wreckage, point to the chaos, and say, See? It’s her.”
Though Sokola’s accusations were the charge for which Weinstein was acquitted, she still said she was pleased with the verdict.
“I’m very happy,” she told reporters outside the courtroom. “I’m proud of the other two girls, the other two women who testified. It was an extremely difficult journey for all of us to relive our traumas and to go through it in open court. It’s a big win for everyone. Harvey Weinstein will be in jail.”
Weinstein is still on the hook for a 16-year sentence in California, where he was convicted in December 2022. That verdict is under an appeal of the same nature that got his 2022 New York conviction thrown out, due to improper testimony from women who said they were assaulted, but whose accusations were not formally charged.
Though Weinstein told his lawyers he wanted to testify in his own defense this time around – which would have been highly unusual – they ultimately decided it was too risky. He did, however, take the unusual step of granting a jailhouse interview, to Candace Owens, telling the conservative commentator that sexual encounters with the women was consensual and purely “transactional.”
Three women took the stand to accuse Weinstein in the Manhattan retrial. Sokola, the only new witnesses who did not testify in the 2020 New York trial, told the jury on May 8 that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in a Manhattan hotel in 2006.
Mann testified May 20 that she started a consensual sexual relationship with Weinstein, but after she tried to end it by telling him she was seeing someone else, he grabbed, dragged, forcefully undressed and raped her in 2013. Another accuser, Haley, testified April 30 that Weinstein forced oral sex on her in 2006, also in a hotel room.
Throughout all three trials, Weinstein has denied any wrongdoing, saying the sex with aspiring actresses amounted to cheating on his wife, but that he never assaulted anyone.
Weinstein was a legendary moviemaker in the ’90s, when he was known as the charismatic but hard-charging producer of Oscar-winning films like “Shakespeare in Love” and “The King’s Speech” – making him without a doubt the single most-thanked man from the Oscar dais. Harvey minted not just classic movies, but bona fide Oscar-winning movie stars, seemingly out of thin air.
But even in those early days, a sinister mythology swirled around the man who operated like a mob boss – that he was a vicious bully and a serial screamer, that he would woo filmmakers only to let their films gather dust, that young actresses were always in his orbit at film festivals, angling for roles and attention.
The truth, it turned out, was far darker than the darkest of those rumors.
When the New York Times and New Yorker published back-to-back accounts in October 2017 of women who said Weinstein sexually harassed, assaulted or raped them – followed by countless other women who came forward with chillingly similar allegations – the dam broke on what soon became known as #MeToo, a social movement whose cultural impact was felt far beyond the 30-mile zone.
In the immediate aftermath, Weinstein was dismissed from The Weinstein Company (the second distribution company he founded with brother Bob, after Miramax), expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, exited the Directors Guild and was divorced by his second wife, Georgina Chapman.
Police in New York, Los Angeles and London opened investigations, in some cases revisiting witnesses who had come forth before with complaints (only to have them neglected or dropped). With a preponderance of evidence now all over the local papers, New York filed the first criminal charges in May 2018, and a jury found him guilty on two of five felony counts in 2020.
Then in 2021, prosecutors filed charges in California, where a Los Angeles jury convicted Weinstein on three of seven felony counts the following year.
Dozens of witnesses were called between the two trials, and each ground through weeks of emotionally punishing testimony from victims, including Jennifer Siebel Newsom, now the wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom. One by one they took the stand and, in almost every case, broke down emotionally as they walked jurors through the grim details of unwanted sexual encounters with the imposing, bulldozing and, by many accounts, genitally mutilated movie mogul.
Their stories followed a similar script: Harvey set a professional meeting, usually set in one of his favorite luxe hotel suites, where he greeted the woman in a bathrobe and demanded a massage. In some cases, the women said Weinstein tracked them down and barged into their living quarters with no notice before going on the attack.
