NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Prosecutors urged a judge on Wednesday to reject Harvey Weinstein \u2019s claims that his June sexual assault conviction was marred by threats and bullying among jurors.<\/p>\n
The disgraced movie mogul\u2019s lawyers submitted sworn affidavits last month from two jurors who said they regretted voting to convict Weinstein and only did so because others on the panel bullied them during five contentious days of deliberations.<\/p>\n
The Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office said the jurors\u2019 claims were \u201cinconsistent and implausible\u201d and that they provided no legal basis for Weinstein\u2019s lawyers to challenge his conviction.<\/p>\n
One juror who claimed in an affidavit that he observed \u201cthreats\u201d and \u201cintimidation\u201d had told the judge during deliberations that he only saw \u201cplayground stuff,\u201d prosecutors said. Immediately after the trial ended, the same juror told reporters, \u201cit\u2019s not like a fight was going to break out. No, obviously not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weinstein\u2019s bid to overturn his first-degree criminal sex act conviction \u201cutterly fails, on both the law and the facts, to meet the standard necessary to set aside the guilty verdict,\u201d prosecutors Matthew Colangelo, Nicole Blumberg, Shannon Lucey and Becky Mangold wrote.<\/p>\n
They cited a centuries-old rule that the U.S. Supreme Court has said gives \u201csubstantial protection to verdict finality\u201d and assures that once a trial is over, jurors won\u2019t be \u201charassed or annoyed by litigants seeking to challenge the verdict.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Curtis Farber said he\u2019ll rule on Dec. 22.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said they declined to interview any jurors before responding to the defense\u2019s claims because doing so would \u201ccause the very harms\u201d the centuries-old rule was meant to avoid.<\/p>\n
Weinstein\u2019s defense team, led by attorney Arthur Aidala, argued in court papers last month that the verdict was marred by \u201cthreats, intimidation, and extraneous bias,\u201d and that Farber failed to properly deal with it at the time.<\/p>\n
The two jurors said in their affidavits that they felt overwhelmed and intimidated by others on the panel who wanted to convict Weinstein on the criminal sex act charge, which accused him of forcing oral sex on TV and film production assistant and producer Miriam Haley in 2006.<\/p>\n
One of the jurors said she was screamed at in the jury room and told, \u201cwe have to get rid of you.\u201d The other juror said anyone who doubted Weinstein\u2019s guilt was grilled by other jurors and that if he could have voted by secret ballot, \u201cI would have returned a not guilty verdict on all three charges.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI regret the verdict,\u201d that juror said. \u201cWithout the intimidation from other jurors, I believe that the jury would have hung on the Miriam Haley charge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weinstein, 73, was acquitted on a second criminal sex act charge involving a different woman, Polish psychotherapist and former model Kaja Sokola. The judge declared a mistrial on the final charge, alleging Weinstein raped former actor Jessica Mann, after the jury foreperson declined to deliberate further.<\/p>\n
It was the second time the Oscar-winning producer was tried on some of the charges. His 2020 conviction, a watershed moment for the # MeToo movement, was overturned last year. In addition to seeking to overturn his June conviction, Weinstein\u2019s lawyers are also fighting to avoid yet another retrial on the undecided count.<\/p>\n
Weinstein denies all of the charges. The first-degree criminal sex act conviction carries the potential for up to 25 years in prison, while the unresolved third-degree rape charge is punishable by up to four years \u2014 less than he already has served. <\/p>\n
The Oscar-winning producer has been behind bars since his initial conviction in 2020, and he later also was sentenced to prison in a separate California case, which he is appealing.<\/p>\n
Some of what the two jurors said in their affidavits echoed acrimony that spilled into public view during deliberations.<\/p>\n
As jurors weighed charges for five days, one juror asked to be excused because he felt another was being treated unfairly. Later, the foreperson complained that other jurors were pushing people to change their minds and that a juror yelled at him for sticking to his opinion and suggested the foreperson would \u201csee me outside.\u201d<\/p>\n
When jurors came forward with concerns, Farber was strict about respecting the sanctity of deliberations and cautioned them not to discuss the content or tenor of jury room discussions, transcripts show.<\/p>\n
As deliberations were on, Farber reminded jurors that \u201ctension and conflict\u201d is normal in the deliberative process.<\/p>\n
In their affidavits, the two jurors said they didn\u2019t feel the judge was willing to listen to their concerns.<\/p>\n
When jurors were asked if they agreed with the guilty verdict, one of the jurors noted in her affidavit that she paused \u201cto try and indicate my discomfort in the verdict.\u201d<\/p>\n
Afterward, when Farber spoke with jurors, she said she told him, \u201cthe deliberations were unprofessional.\u201d<\/p>\n
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