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More than 100 ladies, together with well-known actresses, have accused Harvey Weinstein of misconduct. He has denied assaulting anybody or having non-consensual intercourse.
Harvey Weinstein, former co-chairman of the Weinstein Co., faces a retrial on rape and intercourse assault prices after his 2020 conviction by a jury was overturned by an appeals court docket final yr.(Bloomberg)
Lawyers for the prosecution and protection delivered closing statements, with jury deliberations to comply with. Weinstein’s lawyer accused the three alleged victims of mendacity on the witness stand out of spite after consensual sexual encounters with the Miramax studio co-founder didn’t ship them Hollywood stardom.
Prosecutor Nicole Blumberg referred to as Weinstein a serial predator who promised profession development in Hollywood to ladies, solely to then coax them into non-public settings the place he attacked them. Weinstein, who has denied ever having non-consensual intercourse with anybody, has pleaded not responsible.
“The defendant used his power and influence to create many, many award-winning movies,” Blumberg mentioned. “But he also used that same power, that same influence, to isolate women, trap women in places where he’d be alone with them and abuse them.”
Weinstein, 73, is on trial in Manhattan for a second time after a New York state appeals court docket threw out his conviction in April 2024. Experiencing a litany of well being issues, Weinstein was current in court docket in a wheelchair, carrying a darkish go well with and tie.
He is accused of raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013 and assaulting the 2 different ladies in 2006 and 2002. The trial started in April.
Defense legal professional Arthur Aidala walked the 12 jurors by what he mentioned had been inconsistencies within the ladies’s testimony and electronic mail proof he asserted undercut their claims that Weinstein had assaulted them.
“They are lying about what happened. Not about everything, but about a small slice – just enough to turn their regret, their buyers’ remorse, into criminality,” Aidala mentioned of the accusers.
Aidala hoisted greater than a dozen poster-sized printouts of emails between Weinstein and his accusers, saying they confirmed the intercourse was consensual.
Mann advised jurors through the trial that Weinstein raped her in a resort room.
He faces a most sentence of as much as 29 years in jail if convicted on all adjustments. Weinstein already will probably spend the remainder of his life in jail attributable to a 16-year jail sentence for rape in California.
He was convicted of rape by a jury within the earlier trial in Manhattan in February 2020, however the New York Court of Appeals threw out the conviction and ordered a brand new trial, citing errors by the trial decide. Weinstein had been serving a 23-year sentence in a jail in upstate Rome, New York, when the conviction was overturned.
That conviction was a milestone for the #MeToo motion, which inspired ladies to come back ahead with allegations of sexual misconduct by highly effective males.
Weinstein has been held at New York City’s Rikers Island jail since his conviction was overturned. He has had a number of well being scares whereas being held at Rikers, and in September was rushed to a hospital for emergency coronary heart surgical procedure.
The workplace of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused Weinstein within the first trial of sexually assaulting former manufacturing assistant Miriam Haley in 2006 and raping Mann in 2013, prices on which he was convicted. For the retrial, prosecutors added a brand new cost that Weinstein assaulted one other lady, Kaja Sokola of Poland, in Manhattan in 2002.
More than 100 ladies, together with well-known actresses, have accused Weinstein of misconduct. He has denied assaulting anybody or having non-consensual intercourse.
Miramax studio produced many hit films in its heyday, together with “Shakespeare in Love” and “Pulp Fiction.”
Weinstein’s personal eponymous movie studio filed for chapter in March 2018, 5 months after the unique sexual misconduct accusations grew to become extensively publicized.
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