NEW YORK – Opening statements are set for Tuesday in Harvey Weinstein ’s New York rape retrial, offering a new jury its first look at a bellwether #MeToo case that remains unresolved nearly eight years after the former movie tycoon's arrest.
Since Weinstein became a major target of the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct nearly a decade ago, he has been convicted of some sexual assault charges and acquitted of others in trials on two U.S. coasts. But the rape charge involving a 2013 encounter in a Manhattan hotel has lingered, due to an overturned conviction followed by a jury deadlock.
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Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and denies ever having nonconsensual sex. He said in court in this winter that he had been unfaithful to his then-wife and “acted wrongly, but I never assaulted anyone.”
The jury — seven men and five women — was selected over several days last week. Weinstein's last New York jury was majority-female, but his first was mostly male.
The current jurors were questioned about, among other things, their familiarity with Weinstein and whether they could be fair and impartial regardless of what they might have heard.
Now a 73-year-old prison inmate, Weinstein was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood. An Academy Award-winning producer and a studio boss, he helped bring such acclaimed films as “Pulp Fiction,” “Shakespeare in Love” and “Gangs of New York” to movie houses and the popular reality series “Project Runway” to TV. He also was a prominent Democratic donor.
His career collapsed in 2017, when decades of Hollywood whispers about his behavior toward women became public accusations in news and social media. Criminal charges followed in New York and Los Angeles.
His accuser in this trial, Jessica Mann, was a hairstylist hoping to break into big-time acting when she met Weinstein at a Los Angeles-area party in late 2012 or early 2013.
She has testified that she was looking for a professional connection but ended up, ambivalently, in a consensual relationship with the then-married Weinstein.
During a New York trip with a friend in March 2013, she arranged a breakfast for both of them with Weinstein, she said. According to Mann's prior testimony, Weinstein ultimately trapped her in a hotel room, ignored her protestation that “I don't want to do this,” demanded she undress and grabbed her arms, and she succumbed because she “just wanted to get out.”
Weinstein’s former lawyers emphasized that Mann kept seeing him, accepting invitations, asking him for career help and sending warm messages to him. He has switched legal teams for this retrial, and it remains to be seen how their approach may differ.
The trial is expected to take up to four weeks.