Harvey Weinstein has been found guilty of sexually assaulting his former assistant but not guilty of forcing oral sex on a teenage model.
The disgraced movie mogul was convicted of first-degree committing a criminal sexual act on Wednesday afternoon and faces years longer in jail.
Weinstein’s retrial on rape and sexual assault charges before a New York Supreme Criminal Court jury in Manhattan lasted well over a month.
He was accused of sexually assaulting production assistant Mimi Haley in 2006, aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013, and model Kaja Sokola in 2006.
A jury of five men and seven women unanimously found Weinstein guilty of sexually assaulting Haley but not guilty of forcing oral sex on Sokola.
They are yet to reach a unanimous verdict on whether Weinstein raped Mann, after almost five days of deliberation, and will continue until they decide.
Almost every day since the trial wrapped up last Thursday morning has been filled with high drama in the jury room, coming to a head at the last moment.
Harvey Weinstein has been found guilty of sexually assaulting his former assistant but not guilty of raping a teenage model
The jury foreman repeatedly complained he was being bullied for refusing to change his position and requested to speak with Judge Curtis Farber in private.
‘He said words to the effect of ‘I can’t go back in there with the other jurors’,’ Farber explained later.
The foreman was sent to wait in a separate room, where he penned a note saying, ‘I need to talk to you about a situation’.
When briefly brought into court, the foreman said he wanted to speak in private. He, the judge, prosecutors and Weinstein’s lawyers then went behind closed doors.
The discussion was closed to the press and public, but Farber later said the foreman had expressed that he didn’t want to change his position – whatever it may be – and was being bullied.
‘He 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,’ the judge said.
Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala told the court the man said he was concerned for his safety after his fellow panelist talked about meeting him outside and added, ‘you don’t know me’.
‘I don’t think the court is protecting this juror. Period,’ Aidala said, going on to ask for a mistrial.
Kaja Sokola (left) and Jessica Mann (right) along with production assistant Mimi Haley are the three alleged victims in Weinstein’s ongoing retrial in New York
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, however, said the foreperson hadn’t seemed afraid or apprehensive, just ‘stubborn.’
‘He said he’d made up his mind, he didn’t want to change it, and people were pressuring him to change it. That’s what jury deliberations involve,’ the prosecutor said.
The foreman also complained on Monday about how heated the jury room discussions were, and accused other on the panel of being unfair.
‘I feel like they are attacking, talking together, fight together. I don’t like it,’ he told the judge.
He believed the jury was tasked only with considering ‘what happened at the time, in the moment’ of the crimes alleged by the prosecution, but others ‘are pushing people, talking about his past.’
‘I feel it is not fair taking the decision about the past,’ the foreperson said. He added that others pushed people ‘to change their minds,’ when he thought they instead should seek to answer one another’s questions and ‘let that person make a decision.’
Weinstein’s camp claimed the dramatic jury deliberations were themselves grounds for appeal and implied the foreman was railroaded.
‘This trial was fair until we got to the jury deliberations,’ Weinstein’s PR consultant Juda Engelmayer said.
‘More than one juror had complained that other jurors had preconceived notions and are using their beliefs of Harvey’s life as evidence of guilt. The foreman said he was threatened by other jurors.
‘We believe there are serious appellate issues, and they will be explored.’
He was convicted of sexually assaulting and raping Haley in 2006, but last year, the New York Court of Appeals astonishingly ruled that Weinstein did not receive a fair trial – and tossed out his 23-year sentence.
Mann and Haley restated their cases during the trial, and Polish ex-model Sokola was added to the mix, alleging Weinstein forced oral sex on her in 2006 when she was just 19.
His lawyers told the court the women consented to sex acts with Weinstein as a ‘quid pro quo’ to further their careers,
Weinstein was also jailed in Los Angeles for 16 years for rape, forced oral copulation, and third-degree sexual misconduct in 2022, and acquitted of four other charges.
His lawyers filed an appeal weeks after the verdict, which is being considered by the California Court of Appeal.
More to come.
