NEW YORK (AP) — Jurors began deliberating Thursday in Harvey Weinstein ’s New York sex crimes retrial, but ended the day without a verdict in a case that encapsulated the #MeToo movement.
The seven-woman, five-man jury is considering two counts of criminal sex act and one count of rape, each relating to a different accuser and a different date. In this case, the criminal sex act charge is the higher-degree felony. Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not guilty.
The panel got the case Thursday morning after one juror who couldn’t come to court due to illness was replaced by an alternate. Before wrapping for the day, the jurors sent notes to the judge requesting to hear a readback of some testimony from two of Weinstein’s accusers, as well as to see medical records from one of those women.
Nearly eight years ago, a series of sexual misconduct allegations against the Oscar-winning movie producer propelled the #MeToo movement. Some of those accusations later generated criminal charges and convictions in New York and California.
AP AUDIO: Jury deliberations begin in Harvey Weinstein’s sex crimes retrial
AP correspondent Julie Walker reports jury deliberations begin in Harvey Weinstein’s sex crimes retrial in New York.
The New York conviction from 2020 was subsequently overturned, leading to the retrial before a new jury and a different judge.
Jurors heard more than five weeks of testimony, including lengthy and sometimes fiery questioning of Weinstein’s three accusers in the case.
Jessica Mann said he raped her in 2013, when she was trying to build an acting career. Miriam Haley accused him of forcibly performing oral sex on her in 2006, when she was looking for work in entertainment production.
Kaja Sokola, who wasn’t involved in Weinstein’s first trial, told jurors that he forced oral sex on her, too, during 2006. At the time, she was a teenage fashion model trying to break into acting.
“They all had dreams of pursuing careers in the defendant’s world, the entertainment industry,” prosecutor Nicole Blumberg told jurors in her closing argument Tuesday. She contended that Weinstein let the women think he was interested in their careers when what actually interested him were their bodies, and “he was going to have their bodies and touch their bodies whether they wanted him to or not.”
Weinstein chose not to testify. His defense called other witnesses, including some former friends of Sokola’s and Mann’s.
Weinstein’s attorneys argued that all three accusers consented to Weinstein’s advances because they wanted help with their Hollywood aims. All three stayed on friendly terms with him afterward, a point the defense emphasized.
“It’s transactional, folks. Yes, he wants to fool around with them, and yes, they want something from him,” defense lawyer Arthur Aidala said in his summation Tuesday.
The Associated Press generally does not identify people without their permission if they say they have been sexually assaulted. Sokola, Mann and Haley have agreed to be named.
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