By Jody Godoy
NEW YORK (Reuters) -The judge overseeing former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s rape and sexual assault trial refused on Friday to dismiss a juror who said some jurors were treating others on the 12-person panel unfairly.
“I just don’t think it’s fair and just,” the juror told New York Supreme Court Justice Curtis Farber in court, referring to things other jurors were saying and doing behind another juror’s back.
“There is a bit of a shunning happening,” the juror said.
The juror asked to be dismissed but Farber said there was no legal basis to do so after the juror confirmed that no one on the jury panel was pressuring him to change his view of the case.
“If any other juror feels they need to talk to me, they can,” the judge said. Weinstein’s lawyers said they would make a proposal on how to address the matter later on Friday.
Friday was the second day of jury deliberations. No other jurors were present during the exchange. Farber dismissed alternates from the jury on Thursday.
Weinstein, 73, was convicted of rape by a Manhattan jury in February 2020, but the New York Court of Appeals threw out the conviction and ordered a new trial, citing errors by the trial judge.
Prosecutors say the Academy Award-winning producer raped aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013 and assaulted two other women in 2006 and 2002. Weinstein, who has denied ever having non-consensual sex or assaulting anyone, has pleaded not guilty.
He faces up to 25 years in prison for two counts of criminal sexual acts and up to four years for one count of rape.
Weinstein is already serving a 16-year prison sentence after being found guilty in December 2022 of rape in a separate California case.
Prosecutors with the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg have portrayed Weinstein as a serial predator who promised career advancement in Hollywood to women, only to then coax them into private settings where he attacked them.
Weinstein’s defense lawyers have said his encounters with the women were consensual and accused them of lying about being raped after failing to make it big in Hollywood by sleeping with him.
(Reporting by Jody Godoy; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Howard Goller)
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