Harvey Weinstein to go on trial for 3rd time in NYC rape case starting Tuesday

Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News on Apr 18, 2026

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NEW YORK — The account of a violent rape inside a Midtown hotel room that’s been heard by two dozen New Yorkers over the last half decade is slated to be repeated to another jury Tuesday as Harvey Weinstein’s third Manhattan trial starts in earnest.

Opening statements are expected to begin Tuesday at the second retrial of the multi-convicted former film producer, who again stands accused of attacking Jessica Mann at the DoubleTree Hotel on Lexington Avenue in March 2013.

The incident supported one of the initial two charges Weinstein faced when he was first arrested in 2018, after a deluge of sexual abuse allegations ended his reign in Hollywood and spurred the eruption of the #MeToo movement. Jurors found Weinstein guilty of the attack when the first case went to trial in 2020, as well as a 2006 sexual assault alleged by Miriam Haley, a former TV production assistant.

But the landmark conviction was overturned by New York’s highest court in April 2024 based on testimony unrelated to Mann or Haley. When the case was retried last spring, a second jury convicted Weinstein of assaulting Haley but was divided on Mann, the deliberations devolving to such a low that one juror apparently summoned the foreman to fight in the street.

Mann has not shied away from the complex nature of her yearslong relationship with Weinstein.

In her extensive testimony spanning multiple days at both previous trials, she recounted falling into a complicated, coercive and bleak dynamic with a much older man positioned as the most powerful in Hollywood after moving to Los Angeles in 2012 with aspirations to become an actor.

She testified in 2020 that the Miramax founder expressed deep confidence in her acting abilities and that, after a difficult upbringing in rural Washington state marred by sexual abuse, she believed he would pull her up into a better life.

“He told me that I had a really good look. He said I was prettier than Natalie Portman. He was interested in me. He knew how to spot talent, things like that,” Mann testified in 2020. “I don’t know, I felt like I was being discovered.”

Mann, now 40, was 27 at the time. She is now a hair stylist and cosmetologist.

At both trials, she described sexual encounters that she said were revolting but nevertheless consensual, acknowledging she had hesitantly submitted to Weinstein’s sexual demands before and after the New York assault and another at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills in 2013.

Of the Midtown incident, Mann previously testified that Weinstein tricked her into being alone with him in a hotel room, barricading her inside and aggressively ordering her to remove items of clothing before raping her. She described finding a hypodermic needle in the bathroom trash basket after the incident that she believed Weinstein had used to inject himself to maintain an erection.

The complex nature of the relationship has been seized on by the defense, with Weinstein’s lawyers, at the previous trials, seeking to remove any nuance from the narrative. Prosecutors argued the dynamic was a textbook instance of grooming.

“I had this dynamic with Harvey where I always felt like I had to obey — jump. I just lived on edge a little bit,” Mann said in 2020. “The abuse occurred when he was unpredictable.”

Weinstein has pleaded not guilty to third-degree rape and denies that any of his encounters with Mann were nonconsensual.

While the verdict at Weinstein’s third New York trial could provide interesting insights about societal views on sexual assault and consent nearly a decade after the #MeToo reckoning, neither a guilty verdict nor an acquittal will impact Weinstein’s liberty.

After his first trial, the fallen Hollywood titan was also tried and convicted of rape and sexual assault in Los Angeles in 2022, an outcome he is appealing. He awaits sentencing for his 2024 conviction in Manhattan and is slated to continue serving the 16-year sentence in his California case regardless of what happens in New York.

Now 73, Weinstein has been held in custody on Rikers Island while awaiting trial, with stints at Bellevue Hospital, where he underwent major heart surgery last year.

As of Friday, five women and seven men had been seated as jurors for his Manhattan retrial.