Jury deliberations begin in Harvey Weinstein's NYC sexual assault retrial
Jurors in Harvey Weinstein's sexual assault retrial in Manhattan finished their first day of deliberations Thursday, as they mull whether the disgraced Hollywood heavyweight leveraged his power to sexually assault three women.
Weinstein, 73, is on trial in Manhattan Supreme Court for criminal sex act and rape, after his landmark 2020 #MeToo conviction was overturned last year.
Jurors heard the stories of three accusers over the course of the eight-week trial — former TV production assistant Miriam Haley, Polish model and aspiring actress Kaja Sokola, and one-time actress Jessica Mann.
Mann and Haley testified at Weinstein's 2020 trial, which ended in a 23-year prison sentence before the state's highest court ruled that Judge James Burke should have never allowed the testimony of three women who accused the movie mogul of sexual assaults that weren't included in the charges against him.
Defense lawyer Arthur Aidala and Assistant D.A. Nicole Blumberg gave their closing arguments on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the case officially went to the jury at about 11:30 a.m. Thursday.
The jurors ended the day with a trio of notes to the court, requesting to again hear testimony from Sokola and Mann describing their alleged attacks at the TriBeca Grand Hotel and DoubleTree Hotel.
They also asked to see Mann's medical records from her hospital and doctor's visits after news accounts came out detailing Weinstein's history as a serial sex harasser in October 2017.
Mann testified that she checked herself into an emergency room after having a panic attack and suicidal thoughts after hearing the news. The records also show that she told her doctors Weinstein had raped her.
Haley, a former TV producer who met Weinstein in 2004 accused him of pulling out a tampon and forcibly performing oral sex on her in July 2006, and testified about a second, unwanted sexual encounter at the Tribeca Grand Hotel two weeks later.
Sokola testified that Weinstein attacked her when she was a 16-year-old model, rubbing her vagina under her pants and underwear in 2002, and in 2006, he forcibly performed oral sex on her at the Tribeca Grand Hotel while her sister waited at a restaurant table downstairs.
Mann, also an aspiring actress, alleged Weinstein raped her in Midtown's DoubleTree Hotel in March 2013, but maintained a complicated 'relationship' that included some consensual sexual encounters for years. She also testified about an encounter at the Peninsula Hotel in 2013 where she says Weinstein raped her after she told him she was getting serious with her new actor boyfriend.
Jury deliberations resume Friday.
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