Jury deliberations begin in Harvey Weinstein's sex crimes retrial
Jurors started deliberating on Thursday in Harvey Weinstein's New York sex crimes retrial, tasked with deciding — again — a case that encapsulated the #MeToo movement.
The seven-woman, five-man jury is considering two counts of criminal sex act and one count of rape, each relating to a different accuser and a different date. In this case, the criminal sex act charge is the higher-degree felony.
Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not guilty.
Nearly eight years ago, a series of sexual misconduct allegations against the Oscar-winning movie producer propelled the #MeToo movement.
Some of those accusations later generated criminal charges and convictions in New York and California.
The New York conviction from 2020 was subsequently overturned, leading to the retrial before a new jury and a different judge.
Jurors heard more than five weeks of testimony, including lengthy and sometimes fiery questioning of Weinstein's three accusers in the case.
Jessica Mann said he raped her in 2013, when she was trying to build an acting career. Miriam Haley accused him of forcibly performing oral sex on her in 2006, when she was looking for work in entertainment production.
Kaja Sokola, who was not involved in Weinstein's first trial, told jurors that he forced oral sex on her, too, during 2006. At the time, she was a teenage fashion model trying to break into acting.
'They all had dreams of pursuing careers in the defendant's world, the entertainment industry,' prosecutor Nicole Blumberg told jurors in her closing argument on Tuesday.
She contended that Weinstein let the women think he was interested in their careers when what actually interested him were their bodies, and 'he was going to have their bodies and touch their bodies whether they wanted him to or not'.
Weinstein chose not to testify. His defence called other witnesses, including some former friends of Ms Sokola's and Ms Mann's.
Weinstein's attorneys argued that all three accusers consented to Weinstein's advances because they wanted help with their Hollywood aims.
All three stayed on friendly terms with him afterwards, a point the defence emphasised.
'It's transactional, folks. Yes, he wants to fool around with them, and yes, they want something from him,' defence lawyer Arthur Aidala said in his summation on Tuesday.
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