The Weinstein story is not over yet. 

The jury in the retrial of the movie producer Harvey Weinstein is yet to render a verdict on one count in his three-count indictment after a split verdict on the two other counts was reached on Wednesday. It’s unclear if deliberations will resume as planned on Thursday.  

After Mr. Weinstein heard his guilty and not-guilty verdicts on Wednesday, the presiding judge, Curtis Farber, excused the jury members for the day and told them to come back on Thursday to try to agree on a verdict for the third count. But the attorneys were ordered to come back to the courtroom after lunch. 

When everyone returned at about 3:30 p.m., the judge said, “The foreperson is in the back.” 

“This is an unexpected situation,” the lead defense attorney, Arthur Aidala, remarked. 

Unlike the rest of the jurors, the foreman — who speaks on behalf of the jury, signs the jury’s notes, and proclaims the verdict — had not left the courthouse. The man had waited to speak to the judge, who now called him into the courtroom. 

“Something happened after they [the other jurors] left for the day. Someone [said] … they’re gonna catch me, when I am outside waiting, they’re gonna put my name on the wall … my real name,” the foreman, who is originally from the Dominican Republic, told the court.

The judge asked, “No one physically touched you?” 

The foreman shook his head and said, “They keep talking like angry, like personal.” 

The foreman was saying he had been threatened, again, by someone on the jury who appeared to have disagreed with his vote. It was unclear if it was the same person who had caused trouble earlier in the day. 

As the Sun reported, the foreman had told the judge earlier on Wednesday that he did not want to return to the deliberations room. In a conversation that took place in the judge’s chambers, the juror said, according to the transcript the Sun received, people were attacking him in a “bad way, verbally.”  

“I don’t know,” the juror said. “I feel all the time … [for the last] couple of days, people keep attacking other people. I got two people to prove the situation.”

The tensions had gotten so bad, he said, that one or more jurors were threatening the foreman that they would be waiting to fight him.

“We’re going to see you outside,” the foreman claimed he was told by other jurors. 

To de-escalate the situation, the judge considered sending all 12 jurors, seven women and five men, for a walk, but one of the court officers told the judge that each juror would have to be accompanied by a court officer and he did not have 12 officers on duty who could leave the courthouse at that time.

The judge then scratched the idea. He asked the jurors if they had reached a verdict on any of the counts, which they confirmed that they had. Mr. Weinstein was convicted of one criminal sexual act, and relieved of the other. The third charge, a rape charge, was still in limbo. 

Now that everyone had gone home, the foreman had stayed behind to tell the judge he had been threatened again. 

“Were you coerced into voting any particular way?” the judge asked  

“I vote for my side … I made my own decision,” the foreman replied. 

The judge also asked when the jury had decided on the verdicts on the two counts, and the foreman said everyone unanimously agreed on the counts last Friday, one day after deliberations had started. 

This meant that the jury had been quarreling over the rape charge since Monday. 

The judge asked the foreman if he had concerns about returning to the deliberations room on Thursday. And, somewhat hesitating, the juror said, “Yes.” 

The judge told him that court officers would accompany him into the jury room, but that he would not force him to stay inside if he did not want to. With that he released the juror for the day. The judge ordered the defense attorneys and the prosecution not to speak to the press until the matter was resolved on Thursday.  

It’s unclear what will happen if the foreman refuses to deliberate over the third charge with his fellow jurors. The charge could be declared as hung, or get dismissed. 

Interestingly, the third-degree rape charge, brought by a former aspiring actress, Jessica Mann, who testified during the trial, carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison, which Mr. Weinstein has already served. 

Mr. Weinstein was found guilty on that third-degree rape charge in his first trial in 2020 at the same Lower Manhattan courthouse. He was also, in 2020, found guilty of forcing oral sex on a former production assistant, Miriam Haley. That charge, a criminal sexual act, carries a maximum of 25 years in prison. The judge sentenced him to 23 years. Mr. Weistein was found guilty of this charge again on Wednesday.

After his conviction in 2020, Mr. Weinstein was brought to a medium-security correctional facility in upstate New York. Then, last year, New York’s highest court, the court of appeals, overturned his conviction because it found that the judge had wrongly permitted women to testify who were not part of the charged crimes. 

The Manhattan district attorney’s office decided to bring the charges again and hold a retrial. Mr. Weinstein was brought to a jail on Rikers Island. (Despite the court having vacated his conviction, he could not be freed because he was also convicted on sexual offense charges in California and sentenced to 16 years in prison there.) 

For the retrial, which began with jury selection on April 15, prosecutors brought the same two charges, the third-degree rape charge, related to Ms. Mann, and the criminal sexual act charge related to Ms. Haley, and they added a new charge by a former Polish model, Kaja Sokola. 

All three women testified. Ms. Haley told the court about her allegation that Mr. Weinstein forced oral sex on her inside his New York apartment in 2006. Ms. Sokola said he also forced oral sex on her, in a hotel room in 2006. And Ms. Mann said that the film producer raped her in a hotel in 2013.         

The jury believed Ms. Haley, convicting Mr. Weinstein, again, of the crime. Ms. Haley was outside the courthouse on Wednesday and told reporters that she felt relieved.

“I hope it is finally over,” Ms. Haley said. “It’s just a relief all around, and I am happy that I showed up despite some of the intimidation tactics by the defense.” 

Also outside was Mr. Weinstein’s spokesman, Juda Engelmayer, who told the Sun that the judge and the attorneys from both sides were “talking.”

“The judge is trying to find a win for everybody,” he said. “The judge doesn’t want an appeal, and he knows that there’s a wealth of appellate issues. And he knows that we’re not going to accept what the DA wants for sentencing. So he’s going to have to find a way to make all parties happy.” 


The maximum sentence for the convicted charge, the allegation that Mr. Weinstein performed oral sex on Ms. Haley (while, as she testified, she was on her period), is 25 years in prison. Mr. Weinstein has already served five years, and he has a 16-year sentence waiting for him in California, which his attorneys have appealed. 

The trial will resume on Thursday morning.