Weinberg was initially charged<\/a> with more than a dozen counts of rape, forcible oral copulation, sexual battery, false imprisonment, assault by means to cause great bodily harm and sexual penetration by a foreign object when he was arrested in August 2022. Multiple women told police that Weinberg lured them to his home, almost always under the guise of a photo shoot, before restraining and assaulting them. <\/p>\nDuring the defense\u2019s opening statements on Thursday, attorney Phil Cohen repeatedly described his client as a \u201ccreep,\u201d saying Weinberg didn\u2019t dispute \u201c95% of what took place\u201d and that jurors would likely find it repellent \u2014 but that his lechery didn\u2019t amount to sexual assault. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where \u2018creep\u2019 and \u2018criminal\u2019 become so critical,\u201d Cohen said. <\/p>\n
\u201cDo you want to raise your son like that? No! Do you want your husband to act that way? No!\u201d Cohen told the jury. \u201cBut does that make it criminal?\u201d <\/p>\n
Far from a predatory pattern of a serial abuser, Cohen characterized the encounters as ham-fisted and occasionally tone deaf bumblings of a \u201ccreep\u201d with limited social skills. <\/p>\n
Cohen, too, showed the jurors graphic nudes taken during the encounters, arguing that Weinberg \u2014 and likely many jurors \u2014 would perceive the subjects as eager participants in the throes of passion and not victims snared in a trap they could not escape. <\/p>\n
Weinberg faces more than 20 counts of sexual assault and abuse levied by seven women for incidents that took place between 2014 and 2019. The victims are identified in court filings as Jane Does, and in court by their first names. <\/p>\n
Authorities said \u201cdozens\u201d of additional victims came forward after news of Weinberg\u2019s arrest became public, including several of the women expected to testify at trial. <\/p>\n
In a trial brief submitted earlier this year, prosecutors alleged Weinberg repeatedly traded on his Hollywood r\u00e9sum\u00e9 and affiliation with \u201cScrubs\u201d \u2014 the beloved hospital sitcom he wrote and produced for from 2001 to 2010.<\/p>\n
In opening statements, prosecutors elaborated on that claim, saying Weinberg also traded on stories and pictures of his three children, presenting himself as a loving father looking for an outlet for his creative passion as an amateur shutterbug. <\/p>\n
Several of the alleged assaults took place in a room that had belonged to his daughter. <\/p>\n
During the encounters, prosecutors say Weinberg began making unwanted sexual advances on his victims, grabbing or kissing the women without consent. In some cases, Weinberg pushed the women to take pictures in increasingly suggestive poses while he escalated sexual commentary. <\/p>\n
In multiple incidents, women said he forced himself on them, compelling them to perform oral sex on him, jamming his fingers inside their vaginas and masturbating in front of them. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf he doesn\u2019t know that someone is frozen out of fear, that would [damage] their case,\u201d Cohen said. <\/p>\n
Some were also choked \u2014 images jurors were shown by both the defense and the prosecution. <\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t add up to a threat of force, Cohen said. Without that threat \u2014 or some proof that Weinberg knew the women were afraid of him and wanted him to stop, the prosecution can\u2019t prove his actions were unlawful. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t see Kayra\u2019s hand trying to push him away \u2014 no scratching, no kicking,\u201d Cohen told jurors while showing a nude photo of a woman being choked. <\/p>\n
Instead, Cohen said the women who reported him immediately only wanted to ensure Weinberg couldn\u2019t use the photos to blackmail them \u2014 and those who came forward later were likely motivated by monetary gain. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf the cops are involved, that means the photos will be deleted,\u201d Kayra texted her sister immediately after the incident. \u201cWell if I f\u2014 him over and have him arrested he could totally use those against me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some told police they had been sexually assaulted before, and acquiesced to Weinberg\u2019s unwanted advances out of fear resistance would only make things worse. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the photo shoot was done, [Weinberg] told Jane Doe 2 that she was free to leave and lucky that he did not rape her,\u201d prosecutors wrote in a court filing describing an alleged 2018 assault.<\/p>\n
After some of the attacks, Weinberg would ask the frightened women to speak with other potential models who were nervous about letting him photograph them, according to the February court filing. <\/p>\n
After one encounter, a woman began using a Facebook group to warn others about Weinberg\u2019s alleged behavior, according to a declaration filed in family court in 2022.<\/p>\n
The trial is expected to last until mid-December, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jurors in Los Angeles Superior Court were shown dozens of graphic photos that were taken during what prosecutors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[140247,18531,28400,189107,4456,37188,48,52,51,47,50,49,1433,1410,7214,87689,2531,1428,2601,32266,1557],"class_list":["post-482592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-cohen","tag-encounter","tag-executive-producer","tag-graphic-photo","tag-incident","tag-juror","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-opening-statement","tag-place","tag-prosecutor","tag-scrubs","tag-sexual-assault","tag-trial","tag-victim","tag-weinberg","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}