Advertising
Supported by
A jury found that Weinstein was guilty of sexual offences and rape, but acquitted him of the maximum serious fees opposed to him, predatory sexual assault.
Transcription
“I can say that right now I am satisfied to see that the years I have lost my life are coming back. Of course, there are many paintings to be made. And I’m here to, you know, be there and communicate with other people so that those conditions never happen again, and yes, that’s my project right now.” It’s no longer the same in the United States. This is the age of women’s empowerment. And you can’t intimidate them anymore because women won’t be silenced. Talk. They’ll have their voices. They will rise up and be the subject of your small army of defense lawyers, interrogate them, see to discredit them, humiliate them, dishonor them, and remain in their truth. So Harvey Weinstein, this justice has been slow to come, but despite everything here.” It’s a bittersweet day, we’re disappointed. We knew he was here, and there were 35 of us the day we started this trial. The jurors came here knowing everything they could know w about this case. We haven’t figured out a jury that’s never heard of Harvey Weinstein. You know, Harvey’s strong. Like I said, he’s obviously disappointed. But he’s strong, mentally difficult and he’s going to keep fighting. “He didn’t react emotionally. There was no crying or anything like that. Everything I said was, “I’m innocent, I’m innocent. How can this happen in America, am I innocent? »
Harvey Weinstein, who has long reigned as one of Hollywood’s most influential producers, was convicted Monday of two criminal sex crimes after a trial in Manhattan that has become a turning point for the #MeToo movement.
But the jury acquitted Mr. Weinstein of the two serious maximum fees that were opposed to him, predatory sexual assault.
Dozens of women had made similar accusations against Weinstein. For many, the trial was a brake on the effort to hold tough men accountable for sexual harassment in the workplace.
The jury found that Weinstein is to blame for two counts, first-degree offender sexual assault and third-degree rape. On the two counts of predatory sexual assault, the no-blame verdicts warned that jurors did not have the testimony of Annabella Sciorra, a more productive actress known for her paintings in “The Sopranos.”
He faces a sentence of between 29 years and 29 years.
When the jury entered the courtroom to announce that he had reached a verdict, Mr. Weinstein sat among his lawyers, searching straight for the front, while four court officials stopped him.
Weinstein seemed impassive when he read the verdict. “But I’m innocent, ” repeated the manufacturer 3 times to his lawyers. Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, near the front row.
After reading the verdict, Judge James M. Burke thanked jurors for their “care and concentration” before leaving the courtroom. At the time of his departure, jury No. 6 looked at Mr. Weinstein.
The sentence issued then announced that Mr. Weinstein would be sent without delay to a criminal to await his conviction. But when court officials approached him, the manufacturer gave the impression of being stunned and refused to give in.
Moments later, he handcuffed him and got rid of the room, limping with two officers by his side.
His lawyers said Weinstein left court in an ambulance around 4:30 p.m. be taken to a nursing home on Rikers Island, the city’s vast criminal complex. He was first taken to Bellevue Hospital after complaining of chest pain and symptoms of high blood pressure.
Donna Rotunno, the lead defense attorney, said she “is fine” but didn’t give the main points of the producer’s status.
After back surgery in December, Weinstein began walking. On Monday morning, the protester was removed from the courthouse through his friend William Currao, who attended the trial almost every day.
Also in the afternoon, jury president Bernard Cody said in his harlem construction that the deliberations had been exhausting. “It’s stressful,” he says. “The whole thing a long, long time. I’ve been away from my circle of relatives for a long time.”
Rotunno said at a press convention that he would appeal his conviction after his conviction on March 11. She planned to challenge her early arrest.
“Surely it’s terrible for me to see my consumer in custody,” he said. “Harvey is very strong. He took it like a man. He knows it’s not over.
In May, Weinstein asked Rotunno, a Chicago criminal lawyer who had built a career protecting men accused of sexual misconduct, to lead his legal team after separating from two teams of male-led lawyers.
Ms. Rotunno argued in court that Weinstein’s accusers had had sex with him voluntarily to pursue their careers and that a few years later, after being accused in reports of sexual harassment, they began to have encounters with him as unwise.
In an earlier interview with the New York Times, Rotunno said that while the motion #MeToo had helped the feminist cause, it had taken over.
“You can’t just play with any of the tactics and say, “I can do whatever it takes without consequences,” he said. “Having voluntary sex with someone, even if it’s a wrong act, is not a side crime.”
In The Daily, the Times news podcast, Ms. Rotunno said she had been sexually assaulted “because I would put myself in this situation.”
The verdict was held Monday on social media through several women who had accused Weinstein of sexual assault and sexual harassment, added actress Ashley Judd. Judd, the first woman to publicly denounce Weinstein’s misconduct in the 2017 Times investigation into the producer.
“Harvey Weinstein is now a convicted rapist,” Italian actress and director Asia Argento, of the first accusers, wrote on Instagram under a photo she posted of herself with a woman. “Two survivors cry and celebrate. Thank God.”
Actress Rosanna Arquette, an accuser, wrote on Twitter: “I thank the brave women who testified and the jury for seeing through the defense’s dirty tactics.”
Judd, other key figures in the motion #MeToo and legal experts also spoke to The Times moments after the verdict was read.
“Most of us will never see the inside of the courtroom, yet these women have to take the stand, look him in the eye and say, “You did this to me,” said Tarana Burke, the activist who introduced the first MeToo. Movement more than a decade ago. “He’ll be guilty. That’s one thing we have.”
Transcription
It’s a new day because Harvey Weinstein was, in spite of everything, responsible for the crimes he committed. Women who have bravely advanced and with a wonderful threat have made it possible. Weinstein is a vicious and serial sexual predator who has used his strength to threaten, rape, attack, deceive, humiliate and silence his victims. He was convicted of sex with first-degree offenders and will face a state sentence for offenders aged at least five years and up to 25 years. Dawn Dunning, Miriam Haley, Jessica Mann, Annabella Sciorra, Tarale Wulff, Lauren Young, Meghan Hast, Joan Illuzzi-Orbon: 8 women who have replaced the course of history in combating sexual violence. Eight women have pushed our justice formula in the 21st century by pointing out that rape is rape and that sexual assault is a sexual assault no matter what.
Mr. Vance, the district attorney, said at a news convention after Weinstein’s dismissal that the manufacturer had “finally been convicted of the crimes he committed.”
“Women, who have moved on with courage and risk, have made it possible,” Vance said. “Weinstein is a vicious serial sexual predator who has used his strength to threaten, rape, assault, deceive, humiliate and silence his victims.”
Vance then indexed the names of the six women who testified at trial: Dawn Dunning, Miriam Haley, Jessica Mann, Annabella Sciorra, Tarale Wulff and Lauren Young, as well as two of the prosecutors, Meghan Hast and Joan Illuzzi.
“Eight that have replaced the course of history in combating sexual violence,” he said. “Eight have brought our formula of justice into the 21st century by pointing out that rape is rape and that sexual assault is sexual assault, no matter what.
He added: “To Harvey Weinstein’s survivors, I owe them, and we all have, a huge debt.”
In 2015, Vance refused to sue Weinstein after an Italian style accused the manufacturer of touching his breasts at a business meeting in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood.
At the time, the prosecutor said the evidence allowed Weinstein to be charged with forced contact, a misdemeanor.
Regardless of the guilty verdicts in New York, Weinstein still faces fees in a separate case in Los Angeles. In a major move, California prosecutors announced his indictment on the first day of Weinstein’s Manhattan trial.
The Los Angeles case is on the accounts of two unidentified women who accused him of assaulting them, one day apart, in February 2013.
One of the women, an Italian-style actress, told prosecutors that Weinstein raped her in the bathroom of a Beverly Hills hotel after setting her up at a film festival.
The next day, the other woman said, Weinstein invited her and the woman to her room at a hotel in West Los Angeles after meeting them in the ground-floor dining room. There, prosecutors said, Weinstein caught his victim in a bathroom, grabbed his breasts and masturbated.
Six women testified at the trial that sexually assaulted them, Weinstein faced criminals’ fees for only two of them. Others were allowed to testify to identify a behavior trend.
The indictment was based on accusations through Miriam Haley, a former television production assistant who testified that Mr. Weinstein forced him to perform oral sex at his Manhattan apartment in 2006; and Jessica Mann, a former aspiring actress, who says she raped her in a hotel room in Midtown Manhattan in 2013.
Both Ms. Mann and Ms. Haley stated that they continued to see Mr. Weinstein after the alleged attacks and had consensual sexual intercourse with him, which confused the prosecution’s case.
Burke J. allowed the prosecution to call 4 as witnesses to corroborate the five charges stemming from Ms. Mann and Ms. Haley’s accusations opposed to Mr. Weinstein.
One of the witnesses was Ms. Sciorra, who says she was raped by Mr. Weinstein about 30 years ago in her Manhattan apartment. She was called to pay the predatory sexual assault fees, which require evidence that one defendant assaulted at least two victims. In the end, the jury did not convict Mr. Weinstein of those fees.
The other three women were allowed to testify about the accusation that Weinstein eventually became involved in a trend of sexually abusive behavior.
None of the four women’s accounts can be officially charged with a crime on their own because the alleged attacks were too old to be prosecuted under New York’s statute of limitations.
Prosecutors had described Weinstein as an intelligent predator who kept his victims close to control them, using his strength over his careers in the film industry as a lever.
But defense lawyers had said that women had voluntarily had sex with Weinstein to pursue their careers and that a few years later, after being accused in reports of sexual harassment, they began to have encounters with him as unwise.
Transcription
From the New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. It’s The Daily.
Today: Harvey Weinstein is convicted of two sex offences. Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey about what the jury asked to do and what it means they did.
It’s Tuesday, February 25th.
We knew the charges. We knew Weinstein had been accused of unscrupulous sexual assault on a woman. We knew he’d been accused of raping someone else. We knew he had also been charged with predatory sexual assault, which is necessarily a trend of predatory behavior. We knew it complicated, too. That with at least one of the women in charge, Weinstein seemed to have maintained a friendly communication with her. This, the defense said, evidences that total courtship is consensual.
It seemed narrow. Remember, there was an ocean of women making accusations against Harvey Weinstein about sexual harassment, sexual violence. However, there were only two women in the midst of these accusations.
And remind us why, two?
Well, some women had stories that were beyond the statute of limitations, which meant that their stories were necessarily too old for them to participate. Some of the behaviors they described were necessarily corrupt. And there are also women who did need to participate. They feared the scrutiny of a trial by criminals.
And Jodi, what did we know at the beginning of the trial?
Well, we didn’t know much about it. More importantly, we didn’t know anything about the evidence. Harvey Weinstein’s team had published the emails between him and some of his accusers. Would they be able to prove that these relationships were affective, romantic, consensual?
And then, most likely, criminal?
Right.
So, Megan, what are you thinking when this trial is about to begin? What’s wrong with your head?
Well, I’m very curious to know more about the details. And if I’m completely honest, I’m also a little skeptical. The New York District Attorney had been under intense pressure to qualify Weinstein once the story had exploded. There had been so much outrage that the district attorney’s workplace had not filed a complaint against Harvey Weinstein in 2015, when a woman went to the police to report that she had been groped through him, that the district attorney’s workplace was now under such strain that they might be carrying now before they had a literally strong case in hand.
Basically, they were responding to public protest, not necessarily to the most powerful imaginable legal case.
So what happens, Jodi, when this trial begins?
That sounds memorable. We’re at number one hundred Center Street in Manhattan.
There’s a million cameras. It’s almost like he’s showing up on a red carpet upside down. He has this walker who without delay becomes a source of many suspicions. It’s kind of a limp in court.
Mr. Weinstein, how are you today? How’s your back?
Not so good. Best.
And the accusation and the defense are opening up. And then the prosecution starts calling witnesses. And what you see right away, you know, there’s a saying in the sexual offences prosecutions that says there are no better victims. And what other people mean by that is that those stories don’t fit in neat scripts. The maximum of each and every account of sex crimes has its kind of wrinkles, its anti-intuition elements. But we see that, in particular, this case is not a case with, without quoting, “those who suffer the most”. Six of Weinstein’s alleged victims testified at trial. On the one hand, there’s Jessica Mann and Miriam Haley. They’re the basis of the charges. The jury makes their decisions based on whether or not they believe in the stories of these women. On the other hand, there are those kind of style witnesses, those Molineux witnesses. It’s an act-debatable concept. There was a big discussion about whether they deserve to be included, which the prosecution won. They’re there just to build a style. It’s like costhrough’s trial, where he had more witnesses, you know, repeating the same details, telling the same stories of predation. It’s very powerful. But the jury can’t really make a decision that’s anything based on what they say. They’re not the basis of the charges. And in the middle is Annabella Sciorra, and she plays a very rare role in this trial. It tells the story of being violently raped by Harvey Weinstein many years ago. It’s a touching testimony. There is significant media coverage. But she doesn’t forget every single one of them. That was a long time ago. And don’t forget that Annabella Sciorra’s case is out of the statute of limitations, so the jury can’t convict or acquit Harvey Weinstein only on the basis of Annabella Sciorra’s Story. But if you believe in those first two women, whether it’s Jessica Mann or Miriam Hailey or either, and then if you also believe in Anabella Sciorra and upload it, then you can come up with the most serious accusations of predatory sexual assault, which you can potentially send to Harvey Weinstein. Life in prison.
So Megan, after this dramatic testimony from Annabella Sciorra, what about the trial?
Miriam Haley and Jessica Mann testify.
Both in the midst of criminal charges.
The two women in the midst of the burdens of criminals. And in any case, their stories are more confusing than we could have anticipated.
What do you mean?
In Miriam Hailey’s case, she recounts how, when she met Weinstein, she sought to take a break in the entertainment industry and he helped her locate a task as a production assistant on one of her television shows. And that he had started a kind of half-personal, half-professional relationship. She says he assaulted her, sexually assaulted her. But after that, he continued to have friendly communication with him. And two weeks later, he agreed to meet him in a hotel room, where he says he slept with him without resisting. And it turns out to have more nuances than we originally knew.
And by nuance, it means that it introduces the option of some kind of consent: a question.
In fact, this gives the defense the opportunity to perform a serious cross-appeal. It wasn’t just that he had returned to meet him in person and that he had indeed had sex with him after his alleged sexual assault. She kept texting her and signed one of her emails, “Love, Mimi.” And then the defense, in the cross-party, goes very strongly on this and suggests that this is evidence that the total relationship was consensual and that he was using it to advance his career.
Mm-hmm. And how do you see your current date with Weinstein after that meeting?
What about Jessica Mann?
If Miriam Hailey seems a little more confused on the witness stand, Jessica Mann is much more complex. This is a woman who not only had a friendly communication with him after saying she had been sexually assaulted through him. She describes a three-year romantic date with him who came in and out of consensual and non-consensual sex. And that he felt that he was powerful, that he was manipulating her, and that she was still under her control, because she didn’t know how to get out of there. And that he feared that he wouldn’t even harm his circle of relatives if she didn’t participate. And in this case, cross-intervention is rarely quite brutal. In fact, Jessica Mann, looking at how and why she stayed on that date with Weinstein for years after he had her, you know, as she said, assaulted, she’s getting more and more angry. And there’s a moment when she collapses sobbing uncontrollably, and the trial has to raise the court early in the day because it turns out she’s almost having a panic attack. And you can even hear after the court got up behind a locked door, screaming.
Sensational.
So Jodi and I look at this and think, well, that sounds literally painful, and it’s rare for prosecutors to bring fees in those cases. And then we really started running the phones. We’re starting to call former prosecutors and defense attorneys. And they say it’s rare. While sexual offence experts will tell you that it is not uncommon for victims to communicate non-stop with their perpetrators, it is not uncommon for them to have sex with them after the fact, which is literally rare, almost never happens – that prosecutors charge fees in such circumstances. And so too, while we are making this report, we realize that, in fact, this demand turns out to be even more complicated than we originally thought.
And what concerns some of those observers when they see the trial – they’re prosecutors, ex-prosecutors – they say, the prosecution sticks to the bar to explain those quotes? When you have that kind of complexity in an essay, you really have to possess them. You have to admit that it’s very confusing and you have to explain how, essentially, how an appointment can become so abusive. And the prosecution follows him. They call this sexual offence expert, Dr. Barbara Ziv, who has pleaded with many victims. And it explains how this kind of anti-intuition habit exists and how those quotes can be incredibly abusive.
And why are those outdoor lawyers involved in a case that’s not theirs?
In other words, all those prosecutors and sex crime specialists you’re talking to recognize the descriptions of those women. They sense those confused relationships. They have no doubt about it. But they think that judging them can simply undermine the paintings they make and long-term cases like this.
Absolutely. They say, will Harvey Weinstein’s judgment, of all things, tip the clock in the opposite direction, away from the victims?
And that’s what Harvey Weinstein’s defense team is supporting in court. They say this total case is evidence that the motion #MeToo went too far, that all these women had consented to these sexual encounters with Weinstein, and that they are now being renamed and rethought. They warn that they oppose essentially accepting a global where women do not have a signature and are not responsible for their motions to access hotel rooms to meet men and not expect sexual advances. Harvey Weinstein’s main defense attorney is this woman, Donna Rotunno, who has made a career representing men accused of inappropriate sexual behavior, and fits into the feminine face of the anti-MeToo reaction, and literally seeks to frame the defense in that reaction each and every time. Tour.
Mm-hmm. Megan, what do you do when you look at the jury in this case and take all this into account?
So I look at those 12 jurors, those seven men and five women, and I think, wow, as a country, we haven’t been able to reach consensus on some of the maximum basic problems in the #MeToo movement. And here they are asked to leave and succeed in a verdict on some of the thorniest problems we all face right now in terms of sex, strength and consent. And it’s not just a case in which the two central accusers admitted having had consensual sex with Weinstein after pointing out that he had victimized them. It is also a case that lacks many key elements that are placed in sexual offence prosecutions. He doesn’t find many witnesses to corroborate him and other evidence to help in the case. In fact, it seems that it all comes down to …
These women?
This is necessarily the speech that the prosecution gives to those 12 jurors. And on the last day of the debates, what the prosecution is doing is arguing the case about the facts at its disposal, but it also makes a kind of plea for another world. Another, more nuanced and more humane way to persecute rape victims. They say, look, rarely is their habit contradictory. Sometimes they even take a long time to recognize and settle for a crime. But that’s what we want to start to understand. Joan Illuzzi, the D.A., says, come and enter this new world. Enter this new, more nuanced understanding of who rape victims are and how they behave. So, next Tuesday, the opinion on essentially tells the jury that it’s up to you.
We’ll be back.
So Jodi, Megan, we’re on Monday.
Well, the jury’s been deliberating for four days. And in fact, at the end of Friday, there was a kind of suspicion that a verdict was going to come. And the courtroom, I think from the first moment of this morning, from what we hear, felt a little memorable. And then, early in the middle of the morning, they faint and say the verdict is over.
And when you read the verdict, it’s mixed. The jury discovered that Weinstein was not to blame for the predatory sexual assault fees, which could have sent him to commit for the rest of his life. But they found him as the culprit of the unscrupulous sexual assault opposed to Miriam Hailey and the third-degree rape of Jessica Mann.
So this jury believed these two women, despite all the complexities and nuances and all the strata of their cases?
That’s what the verdict suggests, that they believed them.
What is Harvey Weinstein with this verdict?
Then there’s a sense of disbelief.
Looks like he’s completely incredulous.
And in a while after the court got up,
Hello. Can you hear me?
Cy Vance, the prosecutor, the leading prosecutor in the case rate, is giving a press conference.
Rape is rape, whether the survivor shows up within an hour, in the year or never. It is rape, despite the complex dynamics of force and consent after an attack. It’s rape even if there’s no physical evidence, and even if it happened a long time ago. This is the new landscape of sexual assault survivors in America, I think. And it’s a new day.
Megan, what do you think of what Cy Vance says?
I mean, Cy Vance seeks to paint this conviction with the maximum possible radical characteristics. Saying this marks the beginning of a whole new era of sexual offence prosecutions and provides an unprecedented point of responsibility and justice for victims of sexual assault.
Well, I think that’s the point. So, for two years, Megan and I have been looking for the effect of #MeToo. And we see that social attitudes have replaced. But we thought, when does he really start going into the courtroom? When does that replace a jury’s belief? When does that replace a judge’s belief? Look, it’s still too hard to say. But I think there’s something that can be very true here. Actually, not the way Cy Vance put it, but it would possibly be correct, that in presenting this very risky, high-profile and very repulsive case, the Manhattan D.A. in fact, it has expanded what is imaginable in sexual offence prosecutions.
And that it reshapes the public’s understanding and trust about those affected who deserve their day in court.
And this, of course, is a genuine victory for some people and a overtaking for others, I suppose.
It’s true. There are other people who looked at and noticed that prosecutors not only bring the case, but win it. And to see those jurors condemn something that the rest of society had not yet reached a consensus and said that all this had gone too far.
Jody, Megan. Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Yes. Thank you for having us.
On Monday afternoon, Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers said they would appeal his conviction and the judge’s decision to keep him in prison until his sentence, scheduled for March 11.
We’ll be back.
Here’s what you want to know today.
Bad day for Wall Street, the worst seen for stock in years. Take a look at how we ended the day. It seems –
Fear of the coronavirus economy hit money markets on Monday –
This has to do with the coronavirus. We have now known for some time that The Chinese business is intensifying.
– while the inventory market sank at the prospect that the disease would damage world trade.
But it now turns out that investors have resorted to what is happening globally with instances outside China.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 1,000 points, or 3.5 percent, and European markets had their worst day in four years. The decline came when Europe experienced its first outbreak of primary virus, with 229 cases shown in Italy, where the government has blocked 11 cities in the north of the country.
Allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct and attack on Weinstein have swirled for decades in New York and Los Angeles. The trial in Manhattan is just the most recent step in a long saga.
Weinstein had avoided prosecution in connection with an alleged incident of trial and error in 2015 and was only charged in New York in 2018 after women came forward to charge him in the media.
An actress accused Weinstein of raping her in the early 1990s. One woman said she had forced her to have oral sex in 2006. A third accused him of raping her in 2013.
In total, six testified against Weinstein at his trial:
Annabella Sciorra testified that after a dinner in the winter of 1993 or 1994, Mr. Weinstein entered her Manhattan apartment and raped her. The alleged attack was too old to be prosecuted as a violation under New York law.
Miriam Haley told the jury that in 2006, the manufacturer had forced her to perform oral sex in her Lower Manhattan apartment, despite her protests. Weinstein has been charged with a charge of unscrupulous sex and predatory sexual assault involving Ms. Haley, formerly Mimi Haleyi.
Jessica Mann testified that Mr. Weinstein injected her with an erection drug and raped her in a hotel room in Midtown Manhattan. He was charged with first- and third-degree rape and predatory sexual assault involving his accusations.
Dawn Dunning has accused Weinstein of touching his genitals in a room in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood.
Lauren Young told jurors that the manufacturer lowered her dress, touched her breasts, masturbated and ejaculated in a Los Angeles hotel room.
Ms. Young’s account, like those of Ms. Dunning and Ms. Wulff, is legal to show the producer’s history of abuse, prosecutors said.
The reports were through Jan Ransom, Alan Feuer, Liam Stack, Emily Palmer, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey.
Advertising