Prosecutors in Los Angeles have said that they won’t seek a new trial against Harvey Weinstein on the sexual assault charges that ended in a hung jury in December.
“We decided not to retry the defendant on the remaining counts,” Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson confirmed to The Post Tuesday.
The fallen movie mogul was found guilty and sentenced to 16 years behind bars on charges of rape and sexual assault for his February 2013 encounter with an Italian model at the Mr. C. Hotel in LA – who was referred to at trial as Jane Doe 1.
But the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict – resulting in a mistrial – on charges involving Jane Doe 2, previously identified as actress and screenwriter Lauren Young, and Jane Doe 4, Jennifer Siebel Newsom – the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Thompson said that Jane Doe 4 submitted a statement to the judge saying that she didn’t want to seek a retrial, while Jane Doe 2 was disappointed with the decision dismissing the remaining charges.
But if convicted on the sexual battery charge relating to Jane Doe 2, Weinstein only faced another year in prison and it would have forced many of the same witnesses to testify again, Thompson said. One witness would have had to testify for the fourth time, the prosecutor explained.
“It was a tough decision given how much Jane Doe 2 has put into this case,” Thompson said.
Judge Lisa Lench tossed out the remaining charges Tuesday, Thompson confirmed.
Siebel Newsom’s lawyer Elizabeth Fegan said her client’s “primary intention in coming forward was to ensure that Weinstein spends the rest of his life in prison.”
“Had the court not handed down a fitting sentence, my client would have been ready to support the prosecutors if they opted to retry Weinstein, even considering the enormous emotional toll it would inflict on her,” Fegan said.
Weinstein’s spokesman Juda Engelmayer said the charges getting dismissed is “an important step towards Harvey Weinstein’s appeal in LA.”
Engelmayer said there is “ample support and proof” to support Weinstein’s claims that the incident with Jane Doe 1 “never happened and he didn’t know or meet this person.”
Engelmayer said a lie detector test that Weinstein took in 2018 also supports his client’s claims that he never forced Jane Doe 1 to engage in sex acts with him.
“Harvey will be focusing on the difficult task ahead of finally clearing his name,” the rep said.
Weinstein’s lawyer Jacqueline Sparagna told The Post that Weinstein would likely be transferred back to New York – where he is serving a 23-year prison sentence on a rape and sexual assault conviction there – within “days.”
“The state has no reason to keep him here,” she said.
The 70-year-old disgraced movie maker currently has an appeal of his Big Apple conviction pending in New York’s highest court.
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