New York Prosecutors Drop Rape Charge Against Harvey Weinstein

Prosecutors have declined to try Harvey Weinstein for the fourth time, after his accuser said she couldn’t bear to testify again. “Today, following discussions with Jessica Mann, who does not wish to testify again, and in accordance with our survivor-centered approach to prosecutions, we informed the court that we will not retry the remaining count of Rape in the Third Degree,” Manhattan D.A.Alvin Bragg said in a statement. “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.” 

Weinstein was convicted of rape and a first-degree criminal sexual act in 2020. He was accused of sexually assaulting Mann in 2013, in a Manhattan hotel. His conviction was overturned in 2024 when his lawyers argued the first trial was unfair when the court allowed other accusers to testify. The first retrial ended in a mistrial when the jury foreperson said the other jurors were threatening him. The second retrial also ended in mistrial this May, due to jury deadlock.

Weinstein returned to Rikers, where he awaits sentencing for a separate sexual assault conviction. Prosecutors are seeking 20 years. When he finishes that sentence, he is due to serve another 16 in California for the rape of a third woman. Weinstein is appealing those convictions too. 

Mann wrote a letter that was read to the court, saying Weinstein “produced” the trials like he used to produce films. “The court gave so many privileges to Harvey Weinstein that it makes accountability nearly impossible,” she wrote. “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.”