After years of #MeToo infamy, legal peril and prison, Harvey Weinstein is again going on trial on a rape charge in New York City.<\/p>\n
Jury selection started Tuesday in the onetime movie mogul’s latest retrial, where jurors will weigh \u2014 for the third time \u2014 whether he raped hairstylist and Jessica Mann in a Manhattan hotel in 2013.<\/p>\n
It’s a more streamlined proceeding than the array of allegations that were aired at Weinstein\u2019s previous trials in New York and Los Angeles. The Oscar-winning producer denies all the accusations and declared in court this winter that he had \u201cacted wrongly, but I never assaulted anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the retrial is expected to last up to six weeks. Questioned about the length of the proceeding and whether they could be fair and impartial about the much-publicized case, more than 80 people asked to be excused during initial screening Tuesday morning. The day ended with no jurors chosen.<\/p>\n
The process is scheduled to resume Wednesday with prospective jurors being questioned individually in private about their knowledge of the case and Weinstein. Wider-ranging questioning in court should follow eventually.<\/p>\n
A surprise move from prosecutors<\/p>\n
In a surprise move before jury selection began, prosecutors said they had a new piece of evidence \u2014 a remark that Weinstein allegedly made to a court officer six years ago.<\/p>\n
According to Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Candace White, the officer told prosecutors last week that he was present during Weinstein\u2019s February 2020 sexual assault conviction \u2014 which was later overturned \u2014 and heard Weinstein say: \u201cIf you had seen these girls, you would have done the exact same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weinstein\u2019s lawyers urged Judge Curtis Farber to keep any mention of the supposed remark out of the upcoming retrial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis sounds far-fetched,\u201d defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said, also arguing that it emerged too late.<\/p>\n
A subject that was explored in prior trials \u2014 a claims fund for women who said Weinstein sexually mistreated them \u2014 likely won’t come up again. The defense team doesn\u2019t intend to raise the subject, Farber said.<\/p>\n
A new defense team<\/p>\n
Agnifilo and his partners took on the case in February, when longtime Weinstein lawyer Arthur Aidala stepped aside from the retrial to focus on the former studio boss\u2019 appeals and civil matters. Both Aidala and Agnifilo are well-known New York defense attorneys, but their litigation styles differ. Aidala is folksy, while Agnifilo is more buttoned-up.<\/p>\n
Weinstein wielded significant clout in the entertainment industry, having built his reputation on such critical and popular hits as \u201cShakespeare in Love,\u201d \u201cPulp Fiction\u201d and \u201cChocolat.\u201d He also became a prominent Democratic donor.<\/p>\n
Then a series of sexual harassment and sex assault allegations against Weinstein began to emerge in news media in 2017, propelling the #MeToo movement.<\/p>\n
He was criminally charged in New York in 2018 and in Los Angeles two years later.<\/p>\n
A tangled series of trials<\/p>\n
Weinstein went to trial and was convicted of some \u2014 but not all \u2014 counts in both cases. His initial New York convictions were overturned, spurring a retrial last year.<\/p>\n
The retrial verdict was mixed: Weinstein was convicted of forcing oral sex on production assistant and producer Miriam Haley in 2006, but he was acquitted of forcibly performing oral sex on model-turned-psychotherapist Kaja Sokola. The jury didn\u2019t decide on the rape charge involving Mann because the foreperson refused to keep deliberating.<\/p>\n
Mann has testified that she had a consensual, on-and-off relationship with the then-married Weinstein. But when he cornered her in a Manhattan hotel room where she was staying on a weekend getaway, she protested, \u201cI don\u2019t want to do this,\u201d she told jurors. She said he kept making advances and demands until she \u201cjust gave up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weinstein hasn\u2019t testified at any of his trials. His lawyers have contended that he never had non-consensual sex.<\/p>\n
At his trials to date, the defense claimed that his accusers accepted his sexual overtures because they wanted his help in show business. The women said Weinstein dangled his Hollywood influence to attract and victimize them.<\/p>\n
He’s appealing the Los Angeles verdict and is expected to appeal the New York conviction involving Haley. It carries the potential for up to 25 years in prison; no sentencing date has been set.<\/p>\n
In this case, the rape charge is a lower-level felony punishable by up to four years behind bars. Weinstein, 73, already has served longer than that.<\/p>\n
Weinstein has various health problems and uses a wheelchair. He told the judge in January that his \u201cmental state is collapsing\u201d in New York\u2019s notorious Rikers Island jail.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press generally does not identify people without their permission if they say they have been sexually assaulted. Haley, Mann and Sokola agreed to be named.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After years of #MeToo infamy, legal peril and prison, Harvey Weinstein is again going on trial on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[105,472,10015,117,387,25,118,2136,157,9,24,55,54,12,110,56,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-198314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-all-markets-rank-everywhere","9":"tag-app-arts-entertainment","10":"tag-app-crime","11":"tag-app-for-your-consideration","12":"tag-app-public-safety","13":"tag-app-top-stories","14":"tag-associated-press","15":"tag-california","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-new-york","18":"tag-new-york-city","19":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","20":"tag-new-york-city-news","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-nnt","23":"tag-ny","24":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}