Harvey Weinstein, the fallen Hollywood government whose decades-long historical past of alleged sexual assault sparked the #MeToo motion and calls towards office harassment throughout leisure and past, was discovered responsible of 1 2006 sexual assault however acquitted on one other from the identical yr within the high-profile retrial of his intercourse crimes case in New York.
The bulk-female jury handed down its break up verdict after per week of deliberation. Weinstein was convicted in February 2020 of rape and a felony intercourse crime related to particular person allegations from accusers Jessica Mann and Mimi Haley, respectively. He was acquitted on the time on two prices of predatory sexual assault. A month later, he was sentenced to 23 years in jail.
A New York appeals court docket overturned Weinstein’s rape conviction in April 2024.
On Wednesday, he was convicted of forcing oral intercourse on Haley and acquitted of the identical relating to former mannequin Kaja Sokola. The jury was held on a 3rd cost of raping Mann in 2013, the Related Press reported.
In closing arguments, which concluded June 4, Weinstein’s protection legal professional Arthur L. Aidala downplayed his shopper’s alleged assaults as a part of a “courting game” and stated they had been “transactional” exchanges of favors. In keeping with Aidala, prosecutors had been “trying to police the bedroom.” Weinstein had grow to be “the poster boy, the original sinner, for the #MeToo movement,” he added.
Prosecutor Nicole Blumberg took a distinct tone, throwing Aidala’s phrases again on the protection: “This was not a ‘courting game,’ as Mr. Aidala wants you to believe. This was not a ‘transaction.” “This was never about ‘fooling around.’ It was about rape,” she stated.
Weinstein’s retrial started April 23 and featured emotional testimony from former Weinstein Co. manufacturing assistant Haley and once-aspiring actor Mann, who returned to the stand, plus Sokola, who didn’t testify towards the mogul within the 2020 trial. Decide Curtis Farber oversaw the proceedings. The disgraced Hollywood boss, 73, was tried on the allegations that led to his authentic rape and felony intercourse act conviction, plus a brand new sexual assault cost stemming from Sokola’s allegation that he compelled oral intercourse on her in 2006 when she was 19. Weinstein pleaded not responsible and his protection maintained the alleged sexual encounters had been consensual.
Earlier than the jury reached its partial verdict, the jury foreperson expressed dismay to Farber about deliberation proceedings. Farber additionally heard from Weinstein, who urged him to halt the trial. The producer declared earlier than the decision, “it’s just not fair.”
“My life is on the line, and you know what? It’s not fair,” he stated, after making an uncommon request to deal with the court docket. “It’s time, it’s time, it’s time, it’s time to say this trial is over.”
Weinstein’s popularity as a Hollywood star-maker was central to the prosecutors’ opening statements. The Miramax co-founder “knew how tempting the promises of success were,” prosecutor Shannon Lucey stated through the first week of the trial. “He produced, he choreographed, he therefore directed, their ultimate silence.”
Weinstein legal professional Aidala provided one other absorb his opening statements. He asserted that his shopper engaged in a Hollywood quid professional quo with the accusers, telling jurors, “the casting couch is not a crime scene.”
Of their respective testimonies, the three girls painted an image of Weinstein as a Hollywood gatekeeper who leveraged his standing to pressure himself upon girls looking for skilled alternatives.
Miriam Haley, a former manufacturing assistant and accuser testifying at Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial.
(Seth Wenig / Related Press)
Haley, a former manufacturing assistant who labored on “Project Runway,” was the primary lady to testify towards Weinstein within the second week of the trial. She alleged that he forcibly carried out oral intercourse on her in 2006 at his New York residence. Much like her testimony in 2020, Haley, 48, detailed assembly the mogul on the Cannes Movie Competition months earlier than he allegedly sexually assaulted her. She stated through the trial that she was solely trying to additional her skilled profession in Hollywood and never looking for intercourse or romance with the Oscar-winning “Shakespeare in Love” producer.
“It was just kind of like a sinking feeling that he wasn’t taking me seriously at all,” Haley stated as she recalled Weinstein’s alleged feedback about her legs and suggestion that they offer one another massages. Throughout her testimony, which constructed on her earlier account from the 2020 trial, Haley stated she remained in touch with Weinstein for skilled issues. In a February 2007 letter that wasn’t seen on the first trial, she instructed Weinstein she would “love [him] forever… and ever…” if he invested in her concept for an internet sequence.
Haley additionally claimed that after a separate encounter with Weinstein, she instructed the previous Hollywood government, “You know you can’t keep doing this.”
Kaja Sokola seems at a Manhattan courthouse to testify towards Harvey Weinstein.
(Curtis Means / Related Press)
Polish-born psychotherapist Sokola, 39, was the second accuser to testify towards Weinstein. Although she sued Weinstein in 2019 for sexual assault and alleged emotional abuse, Sokola took the stand towards him for the primary time through the third week of the trial.
Sokola broke into the modeling scene in her teenagers and met Weinstein at a nightclub throughout a 2002 modeling journey to New York, prosecutors stated. The previous Hollywood government provided to assist make her performing ambitions a actuality, she testified, however then made undesirable bodily advances, starting when she was 16. The prison prices towards Weinstein stem from her allegation that he forcibly carried out oral intercourse on her in a Manhattan resort in 2006, simply earlier than her twentieth birthday. She stated the incident was probably the most “horrifying thing” she had ever skilled as much as that time.
Like Weinstein’s different accusers, Sokola stated she saved in contact with him after the assault however by no means had any romantic or sexual curiosity in him.
Jessica Mann, within the inexperienced costume, arrives to testify in Harvey Weinstein’s rape and sexual assault trial in New York.
(Stefan Jeremiah / Related Press)
In the course of the fifth week of the trial, the third and ultimate accuser, Mann, returned to a well-known scene: She took the stand in entrance of a New York jury as soon as once more and described her difficult relationship with Weinstein. She accused the producer of raping her in a New York resort room in 2013.
Mann, 39, stated she met the Hollywood mogul within the 2010s after a transfer to Los Angeles to pursue performing and recalled that their subsequent conferences would devolve from skilled to non-public. Weinstein invited her into his glitzy world of leisure, Mann stated, however she was not interested in him and refused his preliminary sexual advances.
She testified she finally succumbed to him performing oral intercourse on her as a result of Weinstein allegedly threatened to not let her go away till she let him “do something.” That encounter left her feeling “defiled,” she instructed the jury, however she finally agreed to consensual encounters with Weinstein, who was married on the time.
Wiping tears from her eyes, Mann recalled confronting Weinstein in 2013 after he booked a room on the New York resort the place she and a pal had been staying. She joined Weinstein in his room to keep away from a public argument and instructed him, “I don’t want to do this.” He shoved the door shut as she tried to go away, demanded she undress and grabbed her arms, she alleged. She stated she “just gave up” and Weinstein raped her after injecting himself with a performance-enhancing drug.
She stated she saved the rape a secret and over the following months nudged Weinstein a few film half and remained cordial. “I compartmentalized the part of Harvey that was hurting me,” she stated. Mann detailed her makes an attempt to maintain a delicate distance, together with declining invites, conferences and a package deal from his workplace that she claimed contained money.
Harvey Weinstein seems in state court docket in Manhattan for his retrial in New York.
(Justin Lane / Related Press)
All through the trial, tensions ran excessive as Weinstein’s protection workforce challenged the credibility and accuracy of the accusers’ allegations and probed the character of their respective relationships with the mogul. The “Gangs of New York” producer’s authorized workforce underscored that every of the ladies maintained contact with Weinstein after their alleged assaults. Protection attorneys additionally scrutinized every lady’s motivations for pursuing authorized motion towards Weinstein.
In his cross-examination of Sokola, Weinstein legal professional Michael V. Cibella pressed concerning the cash the mannequin had received in different civil proceedings towards Weinstein. “It changed the course of your life in that you got $3.5 million from false accusations?” Cibella requested.
“No. That’s very unfair,” Sokola replied. “That’s not true.”
Cibella prompt it was Sokola who was making the most of Weinstein and claimed the previous mannequin’s involvement within the retrial abetted her pursuit of assorted authorized pathways to remain in america long-term.
Moreover, Cibella pressed Sokola a few personal journal she saved for an alcohol-abuse program in Poland. Within the decades-old writing, Sokola wrote about individuals who had sexually abused her — notably omitting Weinstein. Sokola did write a few “Harvey W” who was “promising to help” her however nothing got here from it. She ignored Weinstein’s alleged sexual abuse as a result of she had not processed it on the time, she stated throughout questioning.
The protection examination of her diary — saved as a part of her remedy for substance abuse — was “very inappropriate” and violating, she instructed Cibella.
Mann additionally had her share of courtroom tensions with Weinstein and his authorized counsel. Throughout her second day of testimony, after detailing an alleged rape in a Beverly Hills resort room in 2004, Mann turned to the producer and aimed a finger at her eyes after which at him as she exited the courtroom. In response, Weinstein’s protection legal professional Aidala requested a mistrial due to Mann’s gesture. He additionally took concern together with her shows of emotion whereas speaking concerning the alleged 2014 rape. Farber denied the request.
After Mann returned to the stand, Aidala’s line of questioning took an odd flip. The legal professional requested how she faked an orgasm throughout her first sexual encounter with Weinstein so he would permit her to go away. Mann referenced a memorable scene in “When Harry Met Sally…” when Meg Ryan moans in a restaurant. Mann stated she had been “making noises” and Aidala started asking her to elaborate. Prosecutors jumped in to object. After the jury and Mann left for the day, prosecutor Matthew Colangelo criticized Aidala’s line of questioning, saying it went “beyond the pale.”
In the course of the trial jurors additionally heard from a physician-pharmacist, a former government assistant for the producer, pals of Weinstein’s accusers and staff from the inns the place he allegedly assaulted the ladies. Notably, jurors didn’t hear testimony from Weinstein himself. The producer, whose well being has declined since his authentic New York conviction, had at one level thought of testifying.
“He thinks that the evidence in this trial has been challenged very forcefully and that many of the complainants’ stories have been torn apart,” Aidala stated within the penultimate week of the trial.
Finally, Weinstein didn’t take the stand. He additionally didn’t testify through the 2020 trial in New York or a separate 2022 rape trial in Los Angeles. He was convicted of rape in Los Angeles in December 2022; his enchantment in California hasn’t been determined but.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
Assets for survivors of sexual assault
Should you or somebody you realize is the sufferer of sexual violence, yow will discover help utilizing RAINN’s Nationwide Sexual Assault Hotline. Name (800) 656-HOPE or go to on-line.rainn.org to talk with a educated help specialist.
