Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has been convicted of a single count of criminal sexual act at his sex crimes retrial, closing one chapter in the yearslong saga of the onetime Hollywood honcho-turned-#MeToo outcast.
The jury found Weinstein not guilty on another count of criminal sexual act and reached no verdict on the single count of rape he had faced. They deliberated for five days before reaching a verdict on Wednesday.
Weinstein, 73, who appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court in a wheelchair after experiencing a litany of health problems, looked at his lawyer in shock when the “not guilty” verdict was read, according to reports. He had decided not to testify in his defense during the six-week trial.
The former producer and Miramax studio co-founder had pleaded not guilty to raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013 and forcing oral sex on two others, separately, in 2006. He denied the allegations, and his attorneys maintain that anything that happened between him and his accusers was consensual.
He was previously convicted in New York, but it was tossed by an appeals court.
Closing arguments in the retrial concluded on Wednesday with Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, portraying him as the falsely accused “original sinner” of the #MeToo era, while Prosecutor Nicole Blumberg told jurors that Weinstein preyed on less-powerful women he thought would never speak up.
“Members of the jury, he raped three women. They all said, ‘no,’” Blumberg said.
“We heard a lot about 'policing the bedroom' yesterday,” Blumberg said, referring to Aidala's closing argument on Tuesday. “We don't want to police bedrooms either - unless you're forcibly raping someone inside them.”
On Tuesday, Aidala accused the alleged victims of lying on the stand.
"They are lying about what happened. Not about everything, but about a small slice - just enough to turn their regret, their buyers' remorse, into criminality," Aidala said of the accusers.
During his closing, he veered into folksy jokes — sometimes re-enacting witnesses’ behavior — as he contended that his client engaged in a “courting game,” not crimes, the Associated Press reported.
But Blumberg urged jurors to focus on Weinstein’s accusers and their days of grueling testimony.
“This was not a ‘courting game,’ as Mr. Aidala wants you to believe. This was not a ‘transaction,’” Blumberg shot back. “This was never about ‘fooling around.’ It was about rape.”
Aidala argued that everything that happened between the ex-producer and his accusers was a consensual, if “transactional,” exchange of favors. The attorney accused prosecutors of “trying to police the bedroom” and zeroing in on the man seen as ”the poster boy, the original sinner, for the #MeToo movement.”
“They tried to do it five years ago, and now there’s a redo, and they’re trying to do it again,” he told jurors.
His hours-long summation touched on matters from the acclaimed, Weinstein-co-produced 1994 film “Pulp Fiction” to his own marriage and his grandmother’s Italian gravy, at times playing for — and getting — laughs from jurors and Weinstein.
Aidala depicted the former studio boss as a self-made New Yorker, while painting Weinstein’s accusers as troubled and canny “women with broken dreams” who plied him for movie opportunities and other perks, kept engaging with him for years and then turned on him to cash in on his #MeToo undoing. All three received compensation through legal processes separate from the criminal trial.
Blumberg countered that Weinstein interpreted a sexual “no” as a cue to “push a little bit more, and if they still say no, just take it anyway.”
She argued that his accusers stayed in friendly contact with Weinstein because they were trying to work in entertainment, and they feared their careers would be squashed if they crossed him.
“He chose people who he thought would be the perfect victims, who he could rape and keep silent,” the prosecutor said. “He underestimated them.”
Weinstein had a decades-long run as one of the movie industry’s most influential people. In 2017, allegations of sexual assault and harassment tanked his career and catalyzed the #MeToo movement, which seeks accountability for sexual misconduct. More than 100 women, including famous actresses, have accused Weinstein of misconduct.
He was subsequently convicted of sex crimes and sentenced to prison in New York and California. His California appeal hasn’t been decided.
Since the New York retrial opened April 23, prosecutors have brought in more than two dozen witnesses. The prosecution centered on Weinstein’s three accusers, who each faced days of questions.
In often graphic and sometimes tearful testimony, the women said the Oscar-winning producer used his showbiz stature as a hook to prey on them.
Jessica Mann, who accused Weinstein of rape, was a hairstylist hoping to make it as an actress when she met him. The sexual assault accusers also were trying to build careers in entertainment: Miriam Haley was a production assistant and producer, and Kaja Sokola was a teenage model who wanted to get into acting.
Prosecutors added Sokola’s allegations to the case for the retrial. But some other accusers from the first trial weren’t part of the second. The appeals court said it was prejudicial to include their accusations, which never resulted in charges.
Weinstein, who has been held at New York City's Rikers Island jail since his conviction was overturned, now faces a maximum sentence of up to 29 years in prison.
He already will likely spend the rest of his life in prison due to a 16-year prison sentence given to him after being found guilty of rape in California in December 2022.
