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Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers argued on Wednesday that “the casting couch is not a crime scene” as they mounted a new effort to persuade a New York City jury that the Hollywood mogul’s reported sex crimes were consensual.
New York’s highest court last year overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction for sex crimes and rape, ordering a new trial in the same Manhattan courthouse that originally heard the case that became a defining moment of the #MeToo movement.
Weinstein, age 73, entered the courtroom by wheelchair just after 10.30am, greeting the judge. Wearing a dark suit and glasses, he occasionally gestured and whispered to his lawyers as prosecutors detailed graphic stories to the jury of seven women and five men.
Weinstein’s conviction for sexual assault and rape in 2020 came amid a global reckoning that was hailed as a breakthrough for women’s rights. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Cyrus Vance, the Manhattan district attorney at the time, said the verdict “turned the page in our justice system”.
Dozens of senior men in Hollywood and other industries were also convicted of sexual assault and other crimes against women.
However, Weinstein’s lawyers won an appeal after arguing that the additional testimony against the mogul by three women who were not part of the case was unfair.
The retrial is also likely to be another test of attitudes to women’s rights in President Donald Trump’s America, with Weinstein’s lawyers already indicating they hope views towards the #MeToo movement have shifted in their client’s favour.
One of the mogul’s lawyers, Arthur Aidala, said last week that they “feel a lot better this time than last time because of the vibe in the US of America around #MeToo”. “Back then . . . the jurors were walking through protests . . . we could hear it through the window, ‘Harvey’s a rapist’”, Aidala told Fox’s New York affiliate. “That’s all gone.”
The Manhattan prosecutors on Wednesday argued that Weinstein, the Hollywood producer behind films such as Pulp Fiction, used his power to silence his victims for decades. “The script was Harvey Weinstein’s most powerful tool. The movie script, the production, the role, he used those dream opportunities as weapons,” said prosecutor Shannon Lucey.
“[Weinstein] committed these acts when he was at the top of the entertainment industry. He had all the power, they had none,” said Lucey.
Aidala said the accusers were liars who had “fooled around with him consensually” in exchange for jobs. “They realised very quickly that Harvey Weinstein has got the key to that room that they all want to go in. And who’s in that room? George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Leo DiCaprio.”
“In Hollywood they call it the casting couch . . . for these three women the casting couch is not a crime scene. They tried to cut the line. And he’s the guy who provided it. Should he have done it? Absolutely not . . . But there is a lot of real estate between immorality and illegality.”
This case centres on the accusations of three women: production assistant Miriam Haley, who says Weinstein forced oral sex on her in 2006; actress Jessica Mann, who says she was raped in 2013; and model Kaja Sokola, who alleges Weinstein forced oral sex on her in a hotel room when she was 16 years old.
“[Sokola] did not scream, she did not kick . . . she cried,” said Lucey. “She said over and over: ‘please don’t do this’.”
Dawn Dunning, one of the women who testified against Weinstein in 2020, watched from the back of the courtroom on Wednesday. She cried when prosecutors detailed some of the more graphic parts of the alleged sexual assaults.
Haley and Mann testified in the 2020 trial and are set to return to court in the coming weeks.
“[Haley] does not want to testify. It is traumatising to relive the details about [Weinstein] forcibly violating her body in front of the press, in front of the person who did this to her,” said Lucey. “Despite her fears, she will testify in this trial. Because Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her.”
Weinstein has been held at New York’s Rikers Island prison since his 2020 conviction. He was recently moved to Bellevue Hospital for the retrial after his lawyers complained of “deplorable” conditions at Rikers. Weinstein has health problems, including cancer, according to a spokesperson.
Weinstein was also convicted of sex crimes in California in 2022, for which he was sentenced to 16 years in prison. His lawyers are appealing that decision.
