The Angels –
Harvey Weinstein was convicted Monday of rape in a Los Angeles trial in another moment of .MeToo reckoning, five years after becoming a magnet for the movement.
After deliberating for nine days spanning more than two weeks, the jury of eight men and four women reached a verdict in the second criminal trial of the 70-year-old once-powerful movie mogul, who was serving two years of a 23-year sentence. for a rape and sexual assault conviction in New York.
Weinstein was found guilty of rape, forced oral copulation and other charges of sexual misconduct involving an Italian model and actor who he said showed up uninvited on the doorstep of his hotel room during a 2013 Los Angeles film festival. The jury was unable to reach a decision on several charges, particularly charges involving Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The jury reported that they were unable to reach verdicts on her allegations and the allegations of another woman. A mistrial was declared on those charges.
He was also cleared of a sexual assault allegation made by a masseur who treated Weinstein at a hotel in 2010.
Weinstein looked down at the table and appeared to put his hands over his face as the initial guilty charges were read. He looked ahead as the rest of the verdict was read.
He faces up to 24 years in prison when sentenced. Prosecutors and defense attorneys had no immediate comment on the verdict.
“Harvey Weinstein will never be able to rape another woman. He will spend the rest of his life behind bars, where he belongs,” Siebel Newsom said in a statement. “Throughout the trial, Weinstein’s lawyers used tactics of sexism, misogyny and harassment to intimidate, demean and ridicule the survivors. The trial was a stark reminder that we as a society have work to do.”
“It is time for the defendant’s reign of terror to end,” Assistant District Attorney Marlene Martinez said in the prosecution’s closing argument. “It is time for the kingmaker to be brought to justice.”
Lacking forensic evidence or eyewitness accounts of the assaults that Weinstein’s accusers say occurred between 2005 and 2013, the case hinged heavily on the stories and credibility of the four women at the center of the charges.
The accusers included Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker whose husband is California Governor Gavin Newsom. Her intense and emotional testimony of being raped by Weinstein in a hotel room in 2005 brought her most dramatic moments to the trial.
Lauren Young, the only accuser to testify in both of Weinstein’s trials, said she was an aspiring model, actress and screenwriter who met with Weinstein to discuss a script in 2013 when he caught her in a hotel bathroom, groped her and masturbated in front of him. her
The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the charge involving Young. Jurors told the judge they were 10-2 in favor of conviction on her charge and 8-4 in favor of conviction on the two charges related to Siebel Newsom.
Martinez said in her closing that the women entered Weinstein’s hotel suites or let him into their rooms, with no idea what was in store for them.
“Who would suspect that such a titan of the entertainment industry would be a degenerate rapist?” she said.
The women’s stories echoed the allegations of dozens of others that have surfaced since Weinstein became a .MeToo lightning rod, beginning with stories in the New York Times in 2017. A film about the woman was released during the trial. information, “She Said,” and jurors were repeatedly warned not to watch it.
However, it was the defense that made .MeToo an issue during the trial, stressing that none of the four women went to authorities until after the movement targeted Weinstein.
Defense attorneys said that two of the women were completely lying about their encounters with Weinstein, and that the other two had “100% consensual” sexual interactions that they later reframed.
“Repentance is not the same as rape,” Weinstein’s attorney, Alan Jackson, said in closing remarks.
He urged jurors to look beyond the emotional testimony of the women and focus on the factual evidence.
“Believe us because we’re angry, believe us because we’re crying,” Jackson said the jury was asked to do. “Well, anger doesn’t make truth. And tears don’t make truth.”
All of the women involved in the charges called themselves Jane Doe in court. The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly or agree to be named through their attorneys, as the women named here did.
Prosecutors called another 40 witnesses in an attempt to provide context and corroborate those stories. Four were other women who were not charged but testified that Weinstein raped or sexually assaulted them. They were brought to the stand to establish a pattern of sexual predation.
Weinstein beat four more felony counts before the trial even ended when prosecutors said a woman he was accused of twice raping and twice sexually assaulting would not appear to testify. They refused to give a reason. Judge Lisa Lench dismissed those charges.
Weinstein’s latest conviction hands a victory to victims of celebrity sexual misconduct in the wake of some legal setbacks, including the dismissal of Bill Cosby’s conviction last year. The rape trial of “That ’70s Show” actor Danny Masterson, held simultaneously and just down the hall from Weinstein’s, ended in a mistrial. And actor Kevin Spacey emerged victorious in a civil sexual assault trial in New York last month.
Weinstein’s conviction in New York survived an initial appeal, but the case will be heard by the state’s supreme court next year. The California conviction, which is also likely to be appealed, means he won’t walk free even if the East Coast conviction is overturned.