NRL star Hayne faces 3rd trial after convictions overturned

SYDNEY (AP) — Former Australian National Rugby League star Jarryd Hayne has had his sexual assault convictions quashed on appeal and has been ordered to stand trial for a third time.

Hayne, who also played in the NFL for the San Francisco 49ers in 2015, was last May sentenced to five years and nine months in prison, with a non-parole period of three years and eight months, after being found guilty at a retrial of two charges of sexual assault of a woman in 2018.

His first trial ended with a hung jury.

A three-judge panel in the New South Wales state Court of Criminal Appeal on Monday upheld some grounds of Hayne’s appeal and ordered another trial.

Hayne was expected to apply for bail in a Sydney court on Tuesday.

He has denied assaulting the woman in the bedroom of her home in Newcastle, north of Sydney, in September 2018.

Hayne played more than 200 games in Australia’s top-flight NRL, mostly for the Parramatta Eels, from 2006-18, excluding the 2015 season in the NFL and a brief stint with Fiji’s rugby sevens team in an unsuccessful push for Olympic selection in 2016.

He has not played in the NRL since his contract expired in 2018.

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