Harvey Weinstein to be tried for third time in New York after mistrial

Disgraced US film producer Harvey Weinstein is to be tried for a third time in a sexual assault case.

A jury in New York could not reach a verdict in June against the 73-year-old who was accused of raping actress Jessica Mann, and a mistrial was declared. Judge Curtis Farber has said he wants the new trial to happen before the end of this year.

The same jury found Weinstein guilty in June of sexually assaulting former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006 and not guilty of assaulting Polish former runway model Kaja Sokola the same year. Weinstein will be sentenced for the guilty verdict in Ms Haley's case on 30 September.

He denied all of the charges. Throughout the retrial, his lawyers insisted the sexual encounters with his three accusers were "transactional" and "consensual," and labelled the women as opportunists.

Weinstein was originally convicted of rape and criminal sexual act by the same court in 2020 and sentenced to 23 years in prison for the crimes. Last year, however, New York's highest court overturned the conviction, prompting Weinstein's retrial this summer.

Weinstein was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood - the co-founder of film and television production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Company, who produced films such as the Oscar-winning Shakespeare In Love, Pulp Fiction, and The Crying Game. In 2017, a series of sexual misconduct allegations against him propelled the #MeToo movement.

Some of those accusations later led to criminal charges and his convictions in New York and California. Before the retrial, Weinstein was also serving a 16-year prison sentence after being found guilty of rape in California in December 2022.

He has also denied this charge..