Manhattan prosecutors said they will not retry Harvey Weinstein on a rape charge related to Jessica Mann, after a mistrial was declared on the count in May.
The prosecutors said they made the decision to dismiss the charge after having discussions with Mann, who did not wish to testify again. This would have been the fourth time Mann testified in front of a jury about the charge.
“To be clear, we believe Ms. Mann’s account and her credibility as a witness. This has been an extraordinarily taxing ordeal for her, and she has never wavered while testifying in front of two grand juries and three trial juries over the course of eight years. We thank her for her honesty and her tremendous bravery,” Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
In choosing to dismiss the charge related to Mann, the DA’s office is also moving forward with sentencing recommendations of 20 years in prison for Weinstein on the count of a criminal sexual act against former Project Runway assistant Miriam Haley, “which would account for the significant harms his actions have caused Ms. Haley,” according to Bragg. Judge Curtis Farber had been holding off on sentencing until proceedings related to the Mann were concluded. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 25 years.
“Harvey is relieved. This is what should have happened had the prosecution showed the full extent of emails, texts and private messages to the grand jury initially,” said Juda Engelmayer, a spokesperson for Weinstein, referencing the friendly correspondence Mann sent to Weinstein before and after the alleged incident.
“We will be preparing our sentencing materials shortly. As with the original trial, we believe Judge Burke got the sentencing wrong too, and we expect to challenge the prosecution’s recommendations. Harvey has been a model prisoner for nearly seven years. He’s paid his debt,” he continued.
Weinstein was initially convicted in New York in 2020 of raping Mann, an aspiring actress, as well as sexually assaulting Haley. That conviction was overturned in 2024 when the New York Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge incorrectly allowed other women whose allegations were not charged in the case to testify.
Prosecutors then pursued a retrial in 2025, where Weinstein was convicted of a criminal sexual act against Haley, and cleared of a similar charge against former model Kaja Sokola. The jury in that trial was unable to reach a verdict on the charge related to Mann and a mistrial was declared, as one juror refused to continue deliberating amid hostilities among their fellow jurors.
Another trial on the charge related to Mann was held this spring, and similarly ended in a mistrial, as jurors remained deadlocked in their votes.
During the trials, Mann testified that Weinstein had raped her in 2013 at a Manhattan hotel. She described him holding the door shut as she tried to leave, after which he told her to undress and had sex with her.
The defense has maintained that the encounter was consensual, referencing the friendly messages sent by Mann, and questioning Mann on the nature of their relationship, which at times included consensual sex.
After spending close to seven years in prison, Weinstein, 74,has still served less than half of his 16-year-sentence in California, where he was found guilty of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and penetration by foreign object against Jane Doe 1. The former mogul has maintained that the sexual encounters happened but that they were consensual. He has said he is facing various health ailments, including including bone marrow cancer, chronic myeloid leukemia and coronary artery disease, and has been hospitalized across the years of proceedings. “Whatever they think I did bad in my life, I didn’t get the death penalty. I’m going to be 74 in March. I don’t want to die in here,” he said in a January interview withTHR.
In her statement to the court, Mann recounted her experiences across the past several trials, saying she felt her credibility and reputation were picked apart by the media and prosecutors and that she feels mistreated by the court system, “In all of this ordeal, I was treated as though I was the person on trial,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, she said she believed it “thrills Harvey Weinstein to beat the system he believed he is superior to.” She added that she had suffered a concussion before taking the stand at the last trial, which she feels may have altered her ability to communicate effectively on the stand.
“After a lot of thought and reflection, I have chosen not to proceed at a fourth trial against Harvey Weinstein for raping me in March of 2013 in Manhattan. It was clear to me at this last trial I could no longer endure going through this any longer. In my fight to see justice, it has nearly stolen a decade of my life and put me through more harm than good. It has changed me in irrevocable ways that I live with permanently — that there is no restitution for. A cost I have been willing to pay over and over,” Mann said.
“The court gave so many privileges to Harvey Weinstein that it makes accountability nearly impossible. I have not had power or position in any of this. I have not had great wealth, nor have I had my own long term legal representation. I only had the courts and the ways it allows sexual predators to shield a jury from a magnitude of their actions and past crimes and charges — made Justice impossible for me,” she continued.