Harvey Weinstein will be back in a Manhattan courtroom this week as he faces a trial on charges that he raped an aspiring actress in a hotel room — the third time a jury is set to consider the same accusation against him.
Jury selection may begin as early as Tuesday, and opening arguments in the trial could start as soon as this week. Mr. Weinstein, a disgraced former movie producer, has pleaded not guilty and denied all the charges against him.
Earlier this year, Mr. Weinstein — whose lawyers have said is battling a host of medical issues — told the judge overseeing his trial that his situation “feels like a slow march to my death.”
Mr. Weinstein, 74, was convicted of the rape of Jessica Mann, the aspiring actress, in 2020 during his first trial in Manhattan, but the verdict was overturned. Following the second trial, last June, the jury was deadlocked on that count, and the judge ordered a new trial.
Dysfunction among the jurors in his second trial, the repeated trials and “outside pressures” have “turned the process into something that feels predetermined,” Mr. Weinstein said earlier this year.
His downfall, from powerful Hollywood producer to criminal defendant, was seen as a critical moment in the #MeToo movement, which demanded accountability for sexual harassment and assault in the workplace. His return to court on Tuesday marks the most recent development in a legal drama that has taken many turns as it has unfolded over the better part of a decade.
Here’s what you need to know about Mr. Weinstein’s latest trial.
Why is there a third trial?
Following Mr. Weinstein’s trial in 2020, a jury of five men and seven women convicted him of rape and criminal sexual act but acquitted him on three other counts, including the two most serious charges against him of predatory sexual assault.
In 2024, New York’s highest court overturned the convictions, ruling that the trial judge should not have allowed women who had accused Mr. Weinstein of sexual assaults that did not lead to charges to testify in court. A new trial was ordered.
Last year, Mr. Weinstein went through a second trial in New York during which nearly 30 witnesses testified.
In the retrial, Mr. Weinstein was defending himself against accusations that he raped Ms. Mann and that he attacked Miriam Haley, a former production assistant on the television show “Project Runway,” in his Manhattan apartment in July 2006.
A third woman, Kaja Sokola, did not testify at the first trial and was added to the case in 2024. Mr. Weinstein was charged with committing a criminal sexual act in the first degree against Ms. Sokola in an attack that she said took place in a Manhattan hotel in 2006.
Mr. Weinstein’s second trial was capped by rancor in the jury room: Deliberations appeared to fall apart, leading to the foreman’s refusal to continue. The judge overseeing the trial, Justice Curtis Farber of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, accepted a partial verdict.
Mr. Weinstein was found guilty in June of one count of first-degree criminal sexual act in Ms. Haley’s case, which carries a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. He was acquitted of Ms. Sokola’s accusations, and the jury was hung in Ms. Mann’s case.
Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, pledged to retry Mr. Weinstein for a third time on the case involving Ms. Mann, saying she deserved justice.
Since his last trial, Mr. Weinstein has hired a new legal team of Jacob Kaplan, Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos. Arthur L. Aidala, who led Mr. Weinstein’s trial team last year, will remain his civil lawyer.
What is Mr. Weinstein accused of doing?
In his third New York trial, Mr. Weinstein will again face the accusation that he attacked Ms. Mann at a Manhattan hotel in 2013.
Ms. Mann testified last year that she first met Mr. Weinstein when she was about 27, after moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting. Shortly after, she said, he pressured her into giving him a massage. She described his back as covered in blackheads and having the “texture of bark.”
In 2013, she was visiting New York and had planned a morning meal with friends and the producer. He arrived early and got a hotel room over her objections, Ms. Mann testified.
Nonetheless, she went with him to the room, where he injected his penis with medication that produced an erection and then raped her, she said. It was the first time she recalled him “putting his penis inside of me,” she said. She tried to fight, she said, but eventually “I just gave up, I wanted to get out.”
In the years after, Ms. Mann said she fell into a complex relationship with Mr. Weinstein, which included friendly email exchanges, phone calls and several consensual sexual encounters. In her testimony last year, she called it a “dance” in which she tried to keep him both happy and at a distance. At one point, Ms. Mann said, she decided to enter a romantic relationship with him.
“I have told the district attorney I am ready, willing and able to endure this as many times as it takes for justice and accountability to be served,” Ms. Mann said after the mistrial.
Where has Weinstein been since his first trial?
Mr. Weinstein has been in jail or prison since his conviction in New York in 2020, including during a trial in California, where he was convicted of sexual assault in 2022 and sentenced to 16 years. He is appealing that verdict.
In 2024, Mr. Weinstein, who had been serving his prison sentence in Rome, N.Y., was sent back to the Rikers Island jail complex when his sex-crime conviction was overturned.
Early in 2025, Mr. Weinstein complained that he was not being properly treated for his growing medical issues at Rikers.
During his second trial, his lawyers filed an emergency petition to move him to a secured unit at Bellevue Hospital Center, saying that he had diabetes, spinal stenosis and fluid on his heart and lungs, among other ailments. In September, he was hospitalized for emergency heart surgery. The next month, he was diagnosed with cancer. He is now mainly back on Rikers Island.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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