By JENNIFER PELTZ<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Prosecutors once again portrayed\u00a0Harvey Weinstein<\/a>\u00a0as a onetime Hollywood power player who used his sway as a tool of sexual assault, painting a now-familiar picture Tuesday at a rape\u00a0retrial<\/a>\u00a0nearly eight years after the\u00a0former movie tycoon\u2019s arrest.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThis case will come down to power, to control and to manipulation,\u201d Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Candace White told jurors as opening statements\u00a0began<\/a>\u00a0in the bellwether #MeToo case, with DA Alvin Bragg watching from the audience.<\/p>\n Weinstein lawyer Jacob Kaplan countered that the case actually \u201cis about consent, about choice and about regret,\u201d echoing the ex-studio head\u2019s longtime defense that his accuser has recast a willing encounter as a crime.<\/p>\n Since Weinstein became a major\u00a0target of the #MeToo movement<\/a>\u00a0against sexual misconduct nearly a decade ago, he has been convicted of some sexual assault charges and acquitted of others in trials on two U.S. coasts. But the rape charge involving a 2013 encounter in a Manhattan hotel has lingered, due to an\u00a0overturned conviction<\/a>\u00a0followed by a\u00a0jury deadlock<\/a>.<\/p>\n Weinstein has\u00a0pleaded not guilty<\/a>\u00a0and denies ever having nonconsensual sex. He\u00a0said in court<\/a>\u00a0in this winter that he had been unfaithful to his then-wife and \u201cacted wrongly, but I never assaulted anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n The jury \u2014 seven men and five women \u2014 was selected over several days last week. Weinstein\u2019s last New York jury\u00a0was majority-female<\/a>, but his first\u00a0was mostly male<\/a>.<\/p>\n The current jurors were questioned about, among other things, their familiarity with Weinstein and whether they could be fair and impartial regardless of what they might have heard.<\/p>\n Now a 73-year-old prison inmate, Weinstein was once one of the most influential people in Hollywood. An Academy Award-winning producer and a studio boss, he helped bring such acclaimed films as \u201cPulp Fiction,\u201d \u201cShakespeare in Love\u201d and \u201cGangs of New York\u201d to movie houses and the popular reality series \u201cProject Runway\u201d to TV. He also was a\u00a0prominent Democratic donor<\/a>.<\/p>\n His\u00a0career collapsed<\/a>\u00a0in 2017, when decades of Hollywood whispers about his behavior toward women became public accusations\u00a0in news<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0social media<\/a>. Criminal charges followed in New York and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n His accuser in this trial, Jessica Mann, was a 27-year-old hairstylist hoping to break into big-time acting when she met Weinstein at a Los Angeles-area party in early 2013.<\/p>\n She\u00a0has testified<\/a>\u00a0that she was looking for a professional connection but ended up, ambivalently, in a consensual relationship with the then-married Weinstein.<\/p>\n During a New York trip with a friend in March 2013, she arranged a breakfast for both of them with Weinstein, she said at previous trials. According to Mann\u2019s prior testimony, Weinstein ultimately trapped her in a hotel room, ignored her protestation that \u201cI don\u2019t want to do this,\u201d demanded she undress and grabbed her arms, and she succumbed because she \u201cjust wanted to get out.\u201d<\/p>\n White told jurors Tuesday that Weinstein \u201cwas used to getting his way. He did what he wanted, when he wanted and with whom he wanted,\u201d White said, adding: \u201cBehind closed doors, power meant him taking what he wanted from the victim in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n Weinstein\u00a0switched legal teams<\/a>\u00a0for this retrial, but his new attorneys are echoing their predecessors\u2019 themes. Kaplan emphasized Tuesday that after the alleged rape,\u00a0Mann kept seeing Weinstein<\/a>, accepting invitations, asking him for career help and sending warm messages to him.<\/p>\n \u201cMs. Mann was a strong and capable woman who was able to get what she wanted from Harvey while maintaining a relationship with him. She was not a naive child,\u201d Kaplan said. He contended that she reevaluated the relationship and came to regret it years later, but that \u201cdoes not remove consent.\u201d<\/p>\n The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted, unless they agree to be named, as Mann has done.<\/p>\n The trial is expected to take up to four weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By JENNIFER PELTZ NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Prosecutors once again portrayed\u00a0Harvey Weinstein\u00a0as a onetime Hollywood power player who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[72866,6431,78411,81063,75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":{"0":"post-204975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-metoo","9":"tag-harvey-weinstein","10":"tag-harvey-weinstein-rape-retrial","11":"tag-harvey-weinstein-trial-opening-statements","12":"tag-manhattan","13":"tag-manhattan-headlines","14":"tag-manhattan-news","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-nyc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204975","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=204975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}