Harvey Weinstein found guilty of sexual assault in New York retrial, aquitted on another charge
The majority-female jury handed down its split verdict after a week of deliberation. Weinstein was convicted in February 2020 of rape and a felony sex crime connected to individual allegations from accusers Jessica Mann and Mimi Haley, respectively. He was acquitted at the time on two charges of predatory sexual assault. A month later, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
A New York appeals court overturned Weinstein's rape conviction in April 2024.
On Wednesday, he was convicted of forcing oral sex on Haley and acquitted of the same regarding former model Kaja Sokola. The jury was hung on a third charge of raping Mann in 2013, the Associated Press reported.
In closing arguments, which concluded June 4, Weinstein's defense attorney Arthur L. Aidala downplayed his client's alleged assaults as part of a 'courting game' and said they were 'transactional' exchanges of favors. According to Aidala, prosecutors were 'trying to police the bedroom.' Weinstein had become 'the poster boy, the original sinner, for the #MeToo movement,' he added.
Prosecutor Nicole Blumberg took a different tone, throwing Aidala's phrases back at the defense: 'This was not a 'courting game,' as Mr. Aidala wants you to believe. This was not a 'transaction.' 'This was never about 'fooling around.' It was about rape,' she said.
Weinstein's retrial began April 23 and featured emotional testimony from former Weinstein Co. production assistant Haley and once-aspiring actor Mann, who returned to the stand, plus Sokola, who did not testify against the mogul in the 2020 trial. Judge Curtis Farber oversaw the proceedings. The disgraced Hollywood boss, 73, was tried on the allegations that led to his original rape and felony sex act conviction, plus a new sexual assault charge stemming from Sokola's allegation that he forced oral sex on her in 2006 when she was 19. Weinstein pleaded not guilty to all those charges and his defense maintained the alleged sexual encounters were consensual.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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