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Manhattan prosecutors said they would not retry Harvey Weinstein on rape charges involving Jessica Mann, after a mistrial was declared in May.
Prosecutors said they made the decision to drop the charge after discussions with Mann, who did not want to testify again. This was the fourth time Mann had testified before a jury on the charge.
“To be clear, we believe Ms. Mann’s account and her credibility as a witness. This was an extremely stressful ordeal for her, and she never wavered while testifying before two grand juries and three grand juries over the course of eight years. We thank her for her honesty and tremendous courage,” Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
By opting to drop the charge involving Mann, the District Attorney’s Office is also moving forward with recommendations that Weinstein be sentenced to 20 years in prison for a criminal sexual act against former Project Runway assistant Miriam Haley, “which may explain the significant harm his actions caused Ms. Haley,” according to Bragg. Judge Curtis Farber postponed sentencing until the end of the proceedings related to Mann. The maximum penalty for this charge is 25 years.
“Harvey was relieved. This is what should have happened if the prosecution had shown the full extent of the emails, texts and private messages to the grand jury initially,” Weinstein spokeswoman Judah Engelmayer said, referring to friendly correspondence Mann sent to Weinstein before and after the alleged incident.
“We will be preparing our sentencing materials soon. As with the original trial, we believe Judge Burke erred in sentencing as well, and we expect to appeal the prosecution’s recommendations. Harvey has been a model prisoner for nearly 7 years. He has paid his debts.”
Weinstein was initially convicted in New York in 2020 of raping Mann, an aspiring actress, as well as sexually assaulting former Project Runway assistant Miriam Haleye. That conviction was overturned in 2024 when the New York Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge improperly allowed other women who had not been charged in the case to testify.
The prosecution then pursued a retrial in 2025, where Weinstein was found guilty of committing a criminal sexual act against Hailey, and acquitted of a similar charge against former model Kaja Sokola. The jury in that trial was unable to reach a verdict on the charge involving Mann and a mistrial was declared, with one juror refusing to continue deliberations amid hostilities among their fellow jurors.
Another trial on the Mann-related charge was held this spring, and similarly ended in a mistrial, with jurors remaining deadlocked in their votes.
During the trials, Mann testified that Weinstein raped her in 2013 at a Manhattan hotel. She described him closing the door as she tried to leave, after which he asked her to undress and have sex with her.
The defense maintained that the encounter was consensual, pointing to friendly letters sent by Mann, and questioned Mann about the nature of their relationship, which sometimes included consensual sex.
After spending nearly seven years in prison, Weinstein, 74, is still serving less than half of his 16-year sentence in California, where he was convicted of three counts of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, and penetration of a foreign object against Jane Doe 1. The former mogul has maintained that the sexual encounters occurred but were consensual. He said he faces various health ailments, including bone marrow cancer, chronic myeloid leukemia, and coronary artery disease, and has been hospitalized throughout the years for the procedures. “No matter what they think I did badly in my life, I did not get the death penalty,” he said in an interview in January. “I will be 74 in March. I don’t want to die here.” THR.
