Harvey Weinstein 'Seriously Contemplating' Testifying In Trial on Rape and Sexual Charges
Harvey Weinstein's defense team is still deliberating whether to put their client on the stand as his trial on rape and criminal sexual charges winds down.
'We're going to make a game time, more or less, decision,' Arthur Aidala, Weinstein's attorney, told reporters outside of the courtroom Thursday.
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Weinstein did not testify as part of his 2020 trial in New York, nor did he testify in his California case on sexual assault. Aidala noted that the decision to testify is ultimately up to the client, and that one of his partners had spent the majority of Memorial Day weekend prepping Weinstein for possibly taking the stand.
'There is a part of him that is seriously contemplating in a 'he-said, she-said' case whether human beings feel obligated to hear the other side of the story,' Aidala said.
This comes after Weinstein gave an interview to conservative podcaster Candace Owens, in which he proclaimed his innocence, which was released last week.
Asked how Weinstein is viewing how the trial is proceeding so far, Aidala said: 'He thinks that the evidence at this trial has been challenged very forcefully and that many of the complainant stories have been torn apart.'
Weinstein has been present throughout the trial, which kicked off with opening arguments on April 23. The former mogul is being retried on a criminal sexual charge and a rape charge related to respective claims from former production assistant on Project Runway, Miriam Haley, who alleges he forced oral sex on her at his Manhattan apartment in 2006, and from aspiring actress Jessica Mann, who alleges she was raped by Weinstein in 2013 in a Manhattan hotel. Those charges were part of the 2020 trial, but Weinstein's conviction was overturned in April 2024.
Weinstein is being newly charged with a criminal sexual charge related to claims from a third woman, Kaja Sokola, who says he forcibly performed oral sex on her in a Manhattan hotel in 2006.
All three women have taken the stand over the past several weeks, and prosecution rested their case Wednesday. Weinstein's defense team began calling witnesses late Wednesday, and brought in a physician and pharmacist to the stand to describe an erectile dysfunction medication that had come up in testimony as the complaining witnesses described encounters with Weinstein.
On Thursday, the defense team brought in Helga Rose Samuelson, who had shared an apartment with Sokola in 2005, to question the nature of the relationship between Weinstein and Sokola, with Samuelson saying that Weinstein had visited their apartment and gone into a bedroom with Sokola. Sokola denied this encounter happening when she was on the stand.
At one point this week, the defense team raised the possibility of bringing in Owens as a witness, alleging that she had communications with Mann regarding whether she had viewed the encounter with Weinstein as rape. Aidala has asked Mann about this conversation in cross-examination, implying that she had said she did not consider it rape, but it was later stricken from the record and jurors received instructions to disregard the questioning as it was 'without factual basis.'
Before the jury was read that stipulation, Aidala told Judge Curtis Farber that Weinstein wanted to know whether Owens could still be called as a witness, to which Farber said he would have to be notified. However, Aidala said Thursday that they did not expect to call her as a witness, as she had just had a child and he was 'not sure there's anything that's so gripping.'
'I don't think we're going to disturb Ms. Owens,' Aidala said.
Instead, the defense team plans to call two witnesses Friday who will be used to question Mann's credibility. Aidala's team has also issued subpoenas for attorney Gloria Allred, who is Haley's personal attorney, but he noted they 'have not gone to great lengths to enforce the subpoena.'
If Weinstein does not testify, closing arguments are expected to take place Tuesday.
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