{"id":205734,"date":"2026-04-22T04:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T04:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/205734\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T04:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T04:44:14","slug":"jury-should-clear-grotesque-harvey-weinstein-of-rape-rap-even-if-he-skeeves-them-out-lawyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/205734\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury should clear grotesque Harvey Weinstein of rape rap even if he skeeves them out: lawyer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grotesque Harvey Weinstein should be cleared <\/a>of charges of raping an aspiring actress \u2014\u00a0even if Manhattan jurors are skeeved out by the convicted sex pest, his lawyer argued Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not here asking you to like Harvey Weinstein,\u201d the despised defendant\u2019s lawyer, Jacob Kaplan, said during opening statements at the third city sex-crimes trial <\/a>involving the decrepit, deathly pale, wheelchair-bound, 74-year-old former film bigwig and his accuser, Jessica Mann. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis case is about proof, not popularity,\u201d Kaplan said.<\/p>\n

Harvey Weinstein is facing a new trial over allegedly raping an aspiring actress in a Manhattan hotel room. AP<\/p>\n

But prosecutors again portrayed the onetime Hollywood kingmaker as a predator who lured vulnerable women into his twisted web with promises to advance their careers, before sexually assaulting them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case will come down to power, to control and to manipulation,\u201d Assistant District Attorney Candace White told jurors \u2014 as her boss, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, watched on from the courtroom gallery.<\/p>\n

Weinstein, who has been held in city and state custody since his 2018 arrest on various charges, faces\u00a0one count of third-degree rape<\/a> for allegedly assaulting Mann in a 2013 encounter at a Manhattan hotel.<\/p>\n

The disgraced mogul was originally convicted of raping Mann and forcing oral sex on\u00a0former \u201cProject Runaway\u201d production Assistant Mimi Haley at his first\u00a0Manhattan sex-crimes trial in 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Weinstein\u2019s lawyers, including Jacob Kaplan (right) and Marc Agnifilo (center, in gray suit) are arguing that the encounter was a consensual part of a mutually beneficial relationship. AP<\/p>\n

But New York\u2019s highest court ended up overturning that guilty verdict, so the former Miramax boss \u2014 who produced flick hits such as \u201cShakespeare in Love\u201d and \u201cPulp Fiction\u201d \u2014 was put on trial for the cases a second time last summer. <\/p>\n

Jurors at the re-trial convicted him again of the Haley charge but could not decide on the Mann rap after a tumultuous week of deliberations. <\/a><\/p>\n

So prosecutors are going after him yet again over Mann \u2014 hoping the third time\u2019s the charm and will garner them a conviction that sticks.<\/p>\n

Mann, now 41, plans to testify about how Weinstein allegedly forced her to have sex at the Doubletree Hotel in Midtown on March 18, 2013 \u2014 with her discovering the then-married onetime movie honcho\u2019s gross erection-inducing drug injector needle in the trash afterward.<\/a><\/p>\n

Weinstein\u2019s lawyers revisited his longtime defense in the case during opening statements \u2014 insisting his accusers have been wrongfully re-characterizing \u201cconsensual\u201d encounters as sex crimes years later.<\/p>\n

Accuser Jessica Mann is expected to testify that Weinstein raped her inside a hotel room in 2013. Steven Hirsch<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was her choice to make, and she made that choice over and over again for the next four years,\u201d Kaplan told the jury of seven men and five women about the sex encounters between Weinstein and Mann.<\/p>\n

Wearing a dark blue suit and American flag pin and with his tie slightly askew Tuesday, Weinstein flashed a faint thumb\u2019s up to his lawyers and PR rep as court officers rolled him into the room through a side door before the proceeding.<\/p>\n

He already faces up to 25 years in prison when he\u2019s sentenced on the charge of forcing Haley into oral sex.<\/p>\n

Because the max sentence on the pending third-degree rape charge is just four years comparatively, the outcome of the trial happening now is not expected to meaningfully impact his prison sentence.<\/p>\n

Weinstein has separately been convicted of raping an Italian model in California and was sentenced to serve 16 years behind bars in that case.<\/p>\n

Despite his guilty verdicts, the jailed ex-tycoon maintains that he never raped anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI admit my moral failings \u2014 I was unfaithful and acted wrongly \u2014 but I have never assaulted anyone,\u201d\u00a0he said at a Manhattan pre-trial appearance in January.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grotesque Harvey Weinstein should be cleared of charges of raping an aspiring actress \u2014\u00a0even if Manhattan jurors are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[6431,75,84,83,4327,57,9,24,63,11853,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-205734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-harvey-weinstein","9":"tag-manhattan","10":"tag-manhattan-headlines","11":"tag-manhattan-news","12":"tag-manhattan-supreme-court","13":"tag-metro","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-sex-crimes","18":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205734","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=205734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}