NEW YORK _ Oscar-winning producer Harvey Weinstein, when not preening on red carpets across the globe, became a vicious sexual predator targeting defenseless women with no concern beyond his own twisted pleasure, a Manhattan prosecutor alleged during opening arguments Wednesday.
Weinstein, his long-awaited day of legal reckoning finally at hand, sat in silence at the defense table while prosecutor Megan Hast, in stark and terrifying detail, told a Manhattan jury about the Oscar-winning producer's alleged sexual assaults on "The Sopranos" star Annabella Sciorra, and the two New York women who are the alleged victims in this case.
"The evidence will be clear that the man seated right there was not just a titan in Hollywood," Hast said before a rapt courtroom. "He was a rapist, sexually assaulting these women ... and using the entertainment industry to ensure their silence. Finally, after all these years, these women will have their voices heard."
The victims were left "feeling small and insignificant, no match for the power broker in Hollywood: Harvey Weinstein," she said.
Weinstein hobbled silently into a packed Manhattan courtroom for the first day of his trial for allegedly sexually assaulting the two New Yorkers _ a tiny fraction of the dozens of Weinstein accusers who emerged in recent years with allegations of his monstrous behavior.
Sciorra's nightmare began when she answered the door to her Manhattan apartment to find Weinstein standing outside in the winter of 1993-94, Hast recounted.
The actress _ who is expected to testify but is not one of the alleged victims in the case _ was then sexually assaulted in her home after a dinner with Weinstein, Hast told the jurors.
The hulking Weinstein brutally assaulted the 110-pound Sciorra, refusing to take no for an answer as he pinned her arms over her head and raped her, the prosecutor said.
"Annabella at some point gave up the fight and just hoped it would end," continued Hast. "Annabella does not remember having any fight in her when he continued to sexually assault her.
"The defendant finally had enough and he left her emotionally and physically destroyed, passed out on the floor of her bedroom."
Miriam Haleyi, who met Weinstein in Cannes, allegedly endured a similarly ugly 2006 assault after becoming friendly with the movie producer. The 115-pound Haleyi was no match for the 300-pound Weinstein as he forced himself on the stunned victim, Hast told the jury.
"He put his weight on top of her and held her down," said Hast. "She kept saying no, she kept trying to get up, even telling the defendant she was on her period. Harvey Weinstein ignored her desperate pleas and resisted her efforts to get away."
When assaulted a second time by Weinstein, a devastated Haleyi "just lay there motionless like a dead fish and let him violate her, let him rape her ... he told her that she was a whore and a bitch," said Hast.
Weinstein, dressed casually in a black suit with a white shirt and no tie, arrived in court at 9:17 a.m. without his familiar walker. Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. sat two rows behind the prosecution as the long-awaited courtroom referendum on Weinstein's alleged years as a sexual predator began.
Attorney Gloria Allred, who represents Haleyi and several others among Weinstein's myriad accusers, sat one row in front of Vance. Lawyers for the Hollywood honcho turned Tinseltown pariah had sought to bar her from the proceedings.
Weinstein was flanked by his legal team as he entered the packed Manhattan courtroom, five days after a jury was seated in the case.
More than 700 New Yorkers were screened during jury selection over the course of two weeks, with seven women and five men ultimately selected. Two women and one man are serving as alternates.
Weinstein, 67, faces two counts of predatory sexual assault, two counts of rape and one count of criminal sexual act. If convicted of the top charge, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
Weinstein was arrested on May 25, 2018, after he was accused by his former production assistant Mimi Haleyi of performing forcible oral sex on her during a terrifying 2006 encounter in his Manhattan apartment.
Prosecutors have also charged the "Pulp Fiction" producer with raping a separate woman, whose identity has remained anonymous, inside a Manhattan hotel room in March 2013.
More than 90 women worldwide came forward to accuse Weinstein of nonconsensual _ and in some cases violent _ sexual encounters since The New York Times and The New Yorker first published some of the allegations about the mega-producer in October 2017.
