Jurors at Harvey Weinstein‘s rape retrial in New York Metropolis heard corroborating testimony this morning a few 2006 sexual assault by the Oscar wining producer, As effectively the courtroom was given a pattern of the accused hobnobbing with the very wealthy and really influential through the top of his energy.
A buddy of Weinstein accuser Miriam Haley testified on Thursday {that a} “shaken” Haley confided to her in 2006 that the then highly effective producer had “forcibly put his mouth on her vagina with out her consent.”
Elizabeth Entin, a New York-based creator and podcaster who in 2006 shared an condominium within the metropolis with Haley, mentioned that one night throughout that summer time Haley stood within the doorway of Entin’s bed room, trying “uncomfortable,” together with her gaze averted, as she described what had occurred between her and Weinstein.
The famed producer’s movie and tv portfolio included Challenge Runway, an MTV fashion-industry actuality tv present the place Haley labored as a manufacturing assistant. Weinstein is charged with committing a first-degree sexual act in opposition to Haley inside his downtown Manhattan loft condominium in July of 2006.
Entin, within the second day of testimony on the 72-year-old Weinstein’s retrial for rape and sexual assault, mentioned she responded to Haley’s revelation by telling her, “That seems like rape. I believe you must name a lawyer.”
Haley didn’t embrace the thought they usually didn’t focus on the incident or easy methods to deal with it any additional, Entin testified. However from that day ahead, Haley’s habits modified, and the spontaneous, fun-loving buddy Entin had identified turned sadder and extra subdued throughout their remaining months as roommates in New York’s East Village, Entin mentioned.
“She spent much more time in her room,” Entin mentioned. “She appeared to get pleasure from issues quite a bit much less.”
Having proclaimed his innocence of all costs and insisting the relationships had been all “buddies with advantages,” as one protection lawyer put it yesterday, Weinstein may spend the remainder of his life in state jail if discovered responsible on this trial.
Earlier than Entin took the stand Thursday, the second day of testimony in Weinstein’s retrial opened with a poignant occasion of present and telling. Jurors had been proven a sequence of the much-accused Pulp Fiction producer in his heyday to set the stakes. Massive time Democratic donor Weinstein was proven sitting subsequent to Hillary Clinton at a Discovering Neverland movie premiere in 2004, shaking palms with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace in 2014, and chatting with Jennifer Lawrence on the 2013 Oscars Governors Ball in Hollywood.
In reality, the seven ladies and 5 males panel noticed greater than two dozen photos, of Weinstein and others attending gala occasions, flash by on a big flatscreen inside Choose Curtis Farber’s courtroom. Within the assortment had been two photos of Kaja Sokola, who Weinstein is charged with sexually assaulting inside a Manhattan lodge room in 2006.
On the primary correct day of the retrial, after a full jury was seated on April 22, Weinstein spent Wednesday’s opening arguments seated between his attorneys together with his gaze wandering between the decide and the jury field.
The one prosecution witness to testify on April 24 was a former Weinstein assistant, Stefan Sterns, who remembered seeing considered one of Weinstein’s accusers, Miriam Haley, in a New York lodge foyer in 2006 and on one other event patching a name from Haley by means of to his boss.
Sterns’ testimony gave jurors a glimpse of Weinstein on the peak of his powers.
The previous assistant mentioned he traveled with the producer in 2006-2007 on non-public constitution flights to the Sundance and Toronto movie festivals, the BAFTA awards in London, and to meetings-filled Los Angeles enterprise journeys. Sterns mentioned he carried three cell telephones and two Blackberries on the street to handle Weinstein’s calls and emails. Additionally all the time shut by was a locked, hardshell silver briefcase that belonged to Weinstein, though he didn’t carry it himself. It was a whirl of lodge suites, screenings and purple carpets, and in every single place they went all people merely knew Sterns’ boss as “Harvey.”
“That was the type of swagger we walked into these movie festivals with,” Sterns advised Assistant Manhattan District Lawyer Nicole Blumberg. They stored loads of money readily available to “grease the wheels” with $500 suggestions for lodge concierges and restaurant maître d’s, Sterns testified.
Prosecutors are saying Weinstein weaponized his fame, wealth and affect as they search to make the responsible verdicts they received in 2020 get up on retrial, whereas securing an extra conviction for fee of a first-degree felony sexual act. Weinstein’s 2020 conviction in New York and his 23-year jail sentence had been thrown out final 12 months by an appeals courtroom that dominated testimony from three so-called “uncharged” Weinstein accusers had unfairly prejudiced the jury in opposition to him.
On Wednesday, throughout opening arguments, Manhattan Assistant District Lawyer Shannon Lucey recognized a 3rd sufferer, Kaja Sokola, who hadn’t beforehand come ahead and whose identify had gone undisclosed in a brand new indictment in opposition to Weinstein handed down final September.
Sokola was a 16-year-old mannequin and sweetness pageant winner from Poland, newly arrived to New York in 2002, when an occasions promoter launched her to Weinstein at a downtown Manhattan restaurant, Lucey mentioned. The felony cost is for an assault on Sokola that occurred 4 years later in a Manhattan lodge room, Lucey mentioned. However throughout their first assembly in 2002, Weinstein requested her if she wished to be in films and invited Sokola to dinner a couple of days later, solely to have his driver drop her at an condominium believed to be his downtown loft, Lucey mentioned.
There, he persuaded the teen-ager to take off her prime, telling her, “That is what occurs within the {industry},” and steered her to a rest room the place he masturbated whereas groping her, Lucey mentioned. Afterwards, he advised her “See? It wasn’t so unhealthy,” after which, “It’s important to work in your stubbornness,” Lucey advised jurors.
Weinstein’s protection lawyer, Arthur Aidala, didn’t problem that story instantly in his opening assertion to the seven-woman, five-man jury (plus six alternates), however he described Sokola as a “troubled” younger girl. The prosecution had already described her historical past of alcohol abuse and consuming problems. Sokola presently lives in Manhattan and has a baby, the prosecutor mentioned.
Aidala mentioned all three of Weinstein’s accusers within the retrial, together with returning witnesses Haley and Jessica Mann, engaged in consensual intercourse together with his shopper and maintained years-long, mutually helpful relationships with the famed producer.
“He will get them auditions, he will get them jobs and in return they idiot round with him,” Aidala mentioned. When their hoped-for careers within the {industry} didn’t pan out, the ladies turned on him, casting themselves as his victims amid a flurry of revealed revelations in 2017 about Weinstein’s remedy of ladies that gave rise to the #MeToo motion, Aidala mentioned.
In addition they took settlement cash by means of an insurer. Aidala mentioned there are “4 million causes” to query the accusers’ motivations for coming ahead, referencing what he described as the entire payout to the ladies. Aidala mentioned that a few of Weinstein’s alleged victims went as quick as they might to “cash attorneys.” In that class, he named Gloria Allred, who represented Haley and was seated in the back of the courtroom on Wednesday.
Aidala, who has clashed with Allred out and in of courtrooms, acknowledged her presence on Wednesday with a wave and some pleasant phrases, however accused her shopper, Haley, of mendacity below oath within the 2020 trial when she testified that she had no plans to sue him.
Weinstein, whose well being has deteriorated since his authorized troubles started, is spending his time outdoors the courthouse below guard at Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital — a reprieve from the town’s notoriously harsh and dysfunctional Rikers Island jail granted by Choose Farber throughout jury choice.
Regardless of the overturning of his New York 2020 intercourse crimes and sentence in 2024, Weinstein stays in custody due to his separate rape and assault conviction in Los Angeles, which he’s interesting.
