NEW YORK (AP) — Jurors started deliberating Wednesday in Harvey Weinstein ’s rape retrial, weighing an unresolved piece of a case that epitomized the #MeToo movement.
The jury is tasked with deciding whether the former movie mogul raped hairstylist and actor Jessica Mann in a Manhattan hotel on March 18, 2013.
Mann, 40, testified that the two had a consensual relationship, but that Weinstein subjected her to unwanted sex that day after she repeatedly said no.
Lawyers for Weinstein, 74, have maintained that the encounter was consensual, and they have emphasized that Mann continued seeing Weinstein afterward and expressing warmth toward him. Mann has said she was mired in complicated feelings about him, herself and what had happened and that she was “normalizing everything.”
Her viewpoint changed in 2017, when a series of sexual misconduct allegations against the Oscar-winning Weinstein propelled the #MeToo campaign to hold people — especially powerful men — accountable for sexual misbehavior. Weinstein has said he “acted wrongly” but never assaulted anyone.
Some of those accusations later generated criminal convictions against Weinstein in New York and California.
An appeals court overturned his 2020 New York conviction on charges that involved Mann and another accuser. At a retrial last year, jurors failed to reach a verdict on Mann’s portion of the case, leading to a second retrial this year. He is charged with one count of rape in the third degree.
The current jury heard nearly three weeks of testimony, five days of it from Mann. Weinstein decided not to testify.
The Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted. Mann, however, has agreed to be named.
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