Jury convicts Harvey Weinstein on one charge in split verdict at rape retrial

MANHATTAN (CN) — A New York jury on Wednesday came to a partial verdict in the rape retrial of former Hollywood film studio boss Harvey Weinstein, convicting him on one criminal sex charge against former production assistant Miriam “Mimi” Haley and acquitting him on another charge of the same crime against model Kaja Sokola.

The jury is still deliberating on a charge of third-degree rape against actress Jessica Mann.

The court took the unusual step of reading the partial verdict after jurors appeared to reach a breaking point on Wednesday, the fifth day of deliberations.

“I am concerned for my safety,” the jury’s foreperson told the parties behind closed doors, claiming that another juror lobbed him threats like “I’ll see you outside” and “you don’t know me.”

The foreperson said he was unwilling to change his mind on one of the charges, sparking the conflict.

“I can’t go back there with the other jurors,” he said to the judge.

After the incident, Weinstein addressed the judge himself and pleaded with him to declare a mistrial.

“I am not getting a fair trial. This is unheard of,” the ex-movie producer said from the defense table. “It’s time, it’s time, it’s time, it’s time to say this trial is over.”

But New York Supreme Court Justice Curtis Farber said that instances like this are “not a rarity,” and took the jury’s partial verdict. He sent the jurors home for the day to “cool off.” They will return on Thursday to continue deliberating the third-degree rape charge.

Haley, Sokola and Mann accused Weinstein of using his position as an executive at the powerful Weinstein Company movie studio to coerce them into nonconsensual sexual relationships.

“The defendant wanted their bodies and the more they resisted, the more forceful he got,” Assistant District Attorney Shannon Lucey said during the trial’s opening in April.

The charges related to Haley and Mann have been heard by a jury once before, ending in a split verdict in 2020 with Weinstein guilty of the offenses against the two women. But last year, a New York appeals court ordered a retrial after finding the trial judge allowed prejudicial testimony from three women whose accusations against Weinstein were not part of the state’s case-in-chief.

So Haley and Mann shared their experiences once again in testimonies that closely resembled what they said in the first trial five years ago.

Haley said Weinstein, who she called a “fucking asshole” during her testimony, held her down on a hotel bed, “yanked” a tampon out of her and forcibly performed oral sex over her pleas to stop in 2006.

“I couldn’t get away from his grip,” she said. “I couldn’t get away from him. I realized, like, I’m getting raped.”

Mann told jurors that Weinstein raped her after injecting his penis with erectile dysfunction medication at a hotel in 2013. She, too, said she told Weinstein “I don’t want to do this” beforehand.

Mann also testified that Weinstein subsequently raped her “violently” at another hotel later that year, though Weinstein was not charged in that instance.

Sokola was the lone new accuser at the retrial. The Polish model-turned-psychologist claimed she was just 16 years old when Weinstein groped her in a New York City bathroom shortly after meeting her.

The charge stemming from Sokola came from an incident four years later, however, when Sokola said that Weinstein forced his mouth on her vagina in another Manhattan hotel room in 2006. She said that “my soul was removed from me” after the attack.

“I kept saying: ‘Please don’t, please stop, I don’t want this,’” Sokola said. “But he didn’t listen.”

Throughout the trial, Weinstein was serving a 16-year sentence imposed in Los Angeles County Superior Court for raping an Italian model. He was previously doing that time at Rikers Island until he was granted a transfer to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan to accommodate his numerous health issues.

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