Harvey Weinstein's third Manhattan trial on allegations he raped actress Jessica Mann ended Friday with a hung jury and a declared mistrial, the second consecutive jury unable to reach a verdict on the same charge. Nine of the twelve panelists, including all four women, were ready to acquit the 74-year-old former Miramax boss, the New York Post reported. Three male jurors held out for conviction.
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Curtis Farber declared the mistrial just after 1 p.m. after the defense moved for it. The jury had sent two notes, one Thursday morning and another after the lunch break, telling the court it could not reach a unanimous decision. Farber issued an Allen charge after the first note, instructing jurors to keep deliberating. The second note made the deadlock plain.
The result leaves Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office zero-for-two on the Mann allegation and raises a hard question: after three trials, five days of Mann's testimony in this round alone, and a four-week proceeding that produced a lopsided lean toward acquittal, is there any honest basis for dragging everyone back a fourth time?
Jurors who spoke outside court after the verdict pointed to problems with the prosecution's case, not sympathy for Weinstein. Josh Hadar, a 57-year-old juror who voted to acquit, told reporters:
"I think the prevailing thought was that the witness had a lot of inconsistencies in her story. I think it came down to that."
Sarae Perez, a 25-year-old who works in advertising, echoed that assessment. She said the prosecution failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
"The ultimate doubt, a lot of us felt that we found a lot of holes in her cross examination versus the direct. That was the main deciding factor."
A note the jury sent to Judge Farber captured the finality of their split. AP News reported the note read: "We feel that no one is going to change where they stand." Hadar said jurors were upset they could not return a verdict.
The specific charge at issue was one count of third-degree rape stemming from a 2013 encounter with Mann at the DoubleTree hotel in Midtown Manhattan on March 18 of that year. Mann, now 40, testified she said "no" repeatedly and tried to leave. She also acknowledged on the stand that she had a consensual relationship with Weinstein at one point and that Weinstein told her he was in an "open relationship" with his then-wife, Georgina Chapman.
Defense attorney Teny Geragos cross-examined Mann over multiple days, pressing on her relationship with Weinstein and on a note she wrote just two days after the alleged New York attack. The contents of that note were not detailed in court reporting, but its existence became a focal point, and apparently a credibility problem for the prosecution.
The broader case history is tangled. Weinstein's original 2020 New York conviction, which involved Mann's allegation and a charge related to another accuser, was overturned on appeal, the Washington Times noted. A retrial last year also failed to produce a verdict on Mann's claim. That retrial did, however, result in Weinstein's conviction on a separate count: a first-degree criminal sexual act for allegedly assaulting former TV production assistant Miriam "Mimi" Haley. He awaits sentencing on that conviction.
Weinstein also has a separate sex-crimes conviction in California. He remains behind bars regardless of Friday's outcome, as Fox News reported.
Bragg said he was "disappointed" with the mistrial and praised Mann's willingness to testify across three trials. He stated his office would consult with Mann to decide whether to take Weinstein back to trial a fourth time. A hearing has been set for June 24 on that question.
"For nearly a decade, Jessica Mann has fought for justice. Over the course of many weeks during three separate trials, she relived unthinkably painful experiences in front of complete strangers."
That is Bragg's framing, and it is sympathetic to Mann. But sympathy is not evidence. Two consecutive juries have now failed to convict on this charge. Nine of twelve jurors this time around were prepared to acquit. The jurors themselves cited inconsistencies, holes, and an inability of the prosecution to clear the reasonable-doubt bar. At what point does a fourth trial stop being justice and start being stubbornness?
The pattern of powerful figures in entertainment and finance facing repeated legal proceedings, and the question of whether prosecutors are genuinely pursuing accountability or simply refusing to accept results, is not unique to this case. The DOJ emails exposing how a Hollywood publicist opened elite doors for Jeffrey Epstein showed how deeply intertwined power, celebrity, and institutional failure can become in these cases.
Weinstein's defense attorney Marc Agnifilo was blunt after the ruling. He urged Bragg's office to drop the matter.
"We are going to encourage the District Attorney's Office to not try this case again. In my view, they're lucky to have won over three jurors, and I don't think there's any scenario where they're going to do better than that."
Agnifilo also called the outcome "a great day for our jury system." Whatever one thinks of his client, the statement reflects a basic truth: jurors weighed the evidence and found it lacking.
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg tried in her closing to explain away the contradictions in Mann's account by pointing to Weinstein's power in the film industry. Mann herself testified that Weinstein's reach was vast, "Essentially, his friends go very far and his enemies don't step foot in this town", and that she felt trapped in a dynamic she did not fully understand at the time.
Blumberg urged jurors to see Mann's behavior through the lens of manipulation and control, telling them Mann "missed the red flags, she missed the manipulation, the power, the control. She rationalized in her own mind the unwanted sex in the beginning."
That argument asks a jury to set aside what a witness actually did and said, including maintaining a relationship with the accused and writing him a note two days after an alleged rape, and instead view her actions as evidence of victimhood. It is a framework that has gained traction in certain legal and academic circles. But a jury of twelve ordinary citizens heard it, weighed it, and nine of them said no.
Accountability for sex crimes matters. The broader reckoning that began with reporting on Weinstein's conduct years ago exposed real misconduct by powerful men who believed their status placed them above the law. Separate investigations into how prosecutors handled the Epstein case have raised their own serious questions about institutional failure in confronting predatory behavior among the elite.
But accountability also means accepting the verdict of a jury. It means acknowledging when the evidence does not hold up. And it means not using the moral weight of a movement to override the legal rights of a defendant, even an unpopular one.
Mann issued a statement after the mistrial was declared, maintaining that the outcome did not change the truth of her account.
"Today's decision to declare a mistrial doesn't in any way detract from the truth I told and the violent crimes Harvey Weinstein committed upon me and so many others. I chose to testify in three trials because I am telling the truth."
She added: "The power of predators remains too great. I deserve justice, which is why I stand up and face unbearable public scrutiny in the name of a greater good, a world where predators are not in power."
Mann's willingness to testify repeatedly is notable. So is the fact that two juries have now heard her account at length and could not unanimously agree she proved her case. Both things can be true at once. The question for Bragg's office is whether a fourth trial would serve justice or merely serve the political optics of appearing relentless on a high-profile case.
The broader landscape of high-profile sex-crime prosecutions has shown that public outrage and legal proof do not always align. The revelations from the Epstein files about elite networks and the sworn testimony of prominent figures in that scandal illustrate how complicated these cases become when fame, power, and institutional interests converge.
Weinstein remains incarcerated. His 2025 conviction on the Haley charge stands, and he awaits sentencing. His California conviction also keeps him behind bars. The Mann allegation, now unresolved after three trials, will be the subject of a June 24 hearing where Bragg's office must signal its intentions.
The jury system worked exactly as designed. Twelve citizens heard the evidence, deliberated seriously, and could not agree. Nine leaned toward acquittal. The jurors themselves said the prosecution's case had too many holes. That is not a failure of the system. That is the system doing its job, even when the defendant is someone few people are inclined to defend.
If Bragg's office pushes for a fourth trial on the same charge with the same witness and the same evidentiary problems, it will not be pursuing justice. It will be pursuing a headline.
