Harvey Weinstein is asking to have his guilty verdict in New York set aside due to what he calls “substantial misconduct and gross unqualification of jurors.”
A 12-person jury found Weinstein guilty of one count of criminal sexual assault in June against former Project Runway assistant Miriam Haley and acquitted him on another, against former model Kaja Sokola. However, the jury could not reach a verdict on the third count of rape, and that charge ended in a mistrial as the jury foreperson refused to return to deliberate, saying he faced threats from other jurors.
Before that, one of the jurors had asked to address the court twice during deliberations, saying he had heard jurors discussing another juror in the courtroom elevators, and then asking to be excused from the jury as he did not feel the process was “fair.” The foreperson had also previously told Judge Farber that jurors were considering elements from Weinstein’s past that weren’t being used as evidence in the trial and weren’t part of the charged crimes.
Arthur Aidala, who represented Weinstein, called for a mistrial more than a dozen times throughout the five-week trial, and was denied each time. In the filing this week, Aidala argues that the court “failed to conduct a sufficient inquiry when such misconduct was brought to its attention.”
As part of the filing, one of the jurors, whose name has been redacted, filed an affidavit with the court, saying he had approached Judge Farber about juror misconduct on two occasions during the trial but did not share more in open court as they felt “Judge Farber’s questioning made me feel such information was inappropriate to share.”
“Jurors who believed Mr. Weinstein was not guilty were aggressively challenged and forced to explain themselves, while pro-guilty views were accepted without question,” the juror said of deliberations in an affidavit filed Aug. 4.
The juror added the tense atmosphere and verbal threats, with one reportedly saying, “I check people who talk to me like that. You don’t know me. I’ll catch you outside” in the room caused that juror to vote with the majority.
“I did not want to be yelled at and ultimately voted with the majority for the sake of peace,” the affidavit reads. “I regret the verdict. Without the intimidation from other jurors, I believe that the jury would have hung on the Miriam Haley charge.”
Another juror filed an affidavit saying that after declaring the intent to have a non-guilty verdict on all three charges, other jurors had started screaming with one saying, “You got to get out of there. We have to get rid of you,” and other expressed their desire to get them removed form the jury by the judge.
“When I arrived home, I called two family members and told them to come look for me if they didn’t hear from me, since something was not right about this juror deliberation process,” the juror said in an affidavit from June 25.
During the trial, Farber questioned these jurors in open court and also brought them back into chambers to continue questioning. He found that there was not juror misconduct, and allowed the trial to proceed.
Prosecutors have said they plan to retry Weinstein on the rape charge related to former aspiring actress Jessica Mann. The former mogul filed the motion to have the verdict set aside this week, as he still faces sentencing on the criminal sexual assault charge, which carries a possible penalty of up to 25 years in prison.
If the verdict is not set aside, Aidala is requesting a hearing on the nature of the juror misconduct and “to assess the adequacy of the Court’s response during trial.” Prosecutors are preparing their response to the motion and Judge Farber is set to reach a decision on the motion by Dec. 22.
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