Judge declares mistrial in Weinstein rape retrial after jury deadlocked

Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial has ended in a mistrial after the jury became deadlocked.

While the former Hollywood mogul has been convicted of other sex crimes on two US coasts and remains behind bars, the mistrial leaves the New York rape charge in limbo following three trials.

A majority-male New York jury had been weighing whether Weinstein raped Jessica Mann, a hairstylist and actor, in 2013.

Weinstein’s lawyers argued that the encounter was consensual.

It happened during a fraught relationship between the then-married Weinstein and the decades-younger Mann.

The signs of stalemate emerged a few hours into the third day of deliberations, with jurors sending a note saying they “have concluded that they cannot reach a verdict”.

Judge Curtis Farber had instructed the group to continue deliberating, at which point jurors had returned to their closed-door discussions.

The panel was tasked with deciding whether Weinstein — the former movie mogul who became a symbol of the #MeToo movement’s campaign against sexual misconduct — raped Ms Mann in a Manhattan hotel room in March 2013.

An appeals court overturned his 2020 New York conviction on charges that involved Mann and another accuser.

At a retrial last year, jurors failed to reach a verdict on Mann’s portion of the case, leading to this current retrial.

Weinstein was 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 maintain that the encounter was consensual.

They have emphasised that Mann subsequently continued seeing Weinstein and expressing warmth towards 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 these 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.