Harvey Weinstein convicted of rape in L.A. trial
The convictions were related to one victim. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on three other counts, and Weinstein was acquitted of a sexual battery allegation made by another woman, the AP reported.
While the sexual misconduct allegations against him prompted a surge in the #MeToo movement several years ago, Weinstein, 70, remains one of the few high-profile accused figures to face actual legal repercussions. The Los Angeles jury deliberated for 10 days, in multiple instances asking for certain testimony to be read back, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
In October 2017, following explosive reports in the New York Times and New Yorker detailing decades of rape and sexual misconduct allegations against Weinstein, authorities in New York, London and Los Angeles launched investigations into the film executive’s alleged behavior. He was charged in New York in May 2018 on counts of rape and sexual abuse related to two separate accusers; just hours after that trial began in January 2020, he was charged in Los Angeles with the sexual assaults of two different women in incidents said to have taken place in 2013.
In February 2020, the New York jury found that Weinstein had forced oral sex on a production assistant in 2006 and raped an aspiring actress in 2013, but it acquitted him of the most severe charges of predatory sexual assault. He received the 23-year state prison sentence the following month. In July 2021, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office indicted Weinstein on charges of sexually assaulting five different women in incidents spanning a decade. He was extradited for the indictment from New York to Los Angeles, where he pleaded not guilty to every count.
The Los Angeles trial kicked off in October following a failed bid from Weinstein’s lawyers to push court proceedings in an attempt to avoid overlap with the “swirl of adverse publicity” his team believed would accompany the November release of “She Said,” a feature-film rendering of the New York Times’ real-life investigation into Weinstein.
In opening statements, which began Oct. 24, prosecutors argued there was a pattern to how Weinstein — who long had a reputation in the entertainment industry for aggressive behavior, especially as it related to awards season campaign tactics — allegedly targeted young women in Hollywood and threatened to harm their careers if they spoke up.
Multiple women who remained anonymous testified during the trial. The first, Jane Doe #1, said she met Weinstein at a Los Angeles film festival in 2013 and that he showed up at her hotel room afterward, demanding he be let in, according to Deadline. She recalled “panicking with fear” as he allegedly forced her to perform oral sex on him, and stated to the jury that she “wanted to die” as he assaulted her in the bathroom. She added, “I wish this never happened to me.”
Jane Doe #2, an aspiring actress and playwright who previously testified in the New York trial as a supporting witness, also said Weinstein assaulted her in a hotel bathroom in 2013, according to Variety. Jane Doe #2 had showed up to the hotel expecting to pitch a script to Weinstein in the lobby, as was arranged by a relatively new friend of hers. Instead, the accuser said, the friend led her to Weinstein’s hotel suite and then left, shutting the door behind her.
Variety reported that another accuser, a masseuse identified as Jane Doe #3, testified that Weinstein trapped her in a hotel bathroom, where he allegedly groped and yelled at her while masturbating. She said she agreed to see him again on the condition that he not make her uncomfortable again, but that he repeated the behavior again later on.
Among the most high-profile accusers to testify was Jennifer Siebel Newsom, 48, the documentary filmmaker and former actress married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D). Siebel Newsom, whose attorney previously confirmed to news media that Siebel Newsom was the accuser referred to in court filings as Jane Doe #4, accused Weinstein of raping her at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2005 when they met to discuss her career. She said she hadn’t expected him to be alone when she arrived, according to the AP, and that he groped her while masturbating before he then raped her.
An emotional Siebel Newsom recalled feeling nervous after she was directed to Weinstein’s hotel suite, but said in court that she didn’t leave because “you don’t say no to Harvey Weinstein. He could make or ruin your career.”
Prosecutors also aimed to highlight a pattern in Weinstein’s alleged behavior by calling upon “prior bad acts” accusers. One of them, model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, in 2015 participated in a New York sting operation by recording audio of Weinstein in which he admits to groping her and says he is “used to” behaving that way, the New Yorker reported.
Weinstein did not testify in his own defense. His lawyers pointed to what they claimed were inconsistencies in some of the accusers’ testimonies, including specific details related to Jane Doe #1′s claim that Weinstein demanded she perform oral sex on him. Prosecutors established in opening statements that Weinstein has abnormal genitalia due to a 1999 surgery in which his testicles were removed from his scrotum and relocated to his inner thighs, Variety reported. Alan Jackson, an attorney representing Weinstein, claimed that Jane Doe #1′s story changed after hearing of Weinstein’s irregular genitalia, while she maintained that she had previously made note of it to police.
British prosecutors in June authorized charges against Weinstein, citing two counts of indecent assault against a woman in 1996. (He cannot be arrested and formally charged unless extradited to England or Wales.) In August, over two years after Weinstein’s New York conviction, the states’s highest court granted him an appeal.
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