The film producer and Hollywood behemoth was found guilty by jury after a five day period of deliberation.
Harvey Weinstein, the infamous Hollywood producer of Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare in Love, was convicted of two of the five charges against him in a New York court case. A jury of five women and seven men found the defendant guilty of a criminal sex act in the first degree and rape in the third degree against former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haley and an unnamed woman respectively.
Weinstein, 67, was acquitted on the two counts of predatory sexual assault, which may have led to a possible life sentence, and a second charge of rape in the first degree. Weinstein will not be sentenced until March 11th but will remain in custody on Rikers Island.
Weinstein could potentially face a minimum of five years and a maximum of 25 years in prison for the count of a criminal sex act in the first degree. The charge of rape in the third degree carries with it a four-year sentence with no minimum and would have Weinstein register as a sex offender upon release.
Donna Rotunno, one of Weinstein’s defense lawyers and herself a contentious figure during the trial, stated that Weinstein intended to appeal, stating, “He took it like a man. He knows that we will continue to fight for him and knows that this is not over.”
Beginning in late January, the trial’s opening statements by prosecutor Meghan Hast set a tone of blunt and searing assertions that defined the case, “At the end of this trial the evidence will be clear that the man seated right there was not a titan in Hollywood, he was a rapist.” At one point, during Hast’s descriptions of Weinstein as a predator, the former businessman chuckled to himself while dismissively shaking his head.
The Testimony of Annabella Sciorra
The first testimony came from Sopranos actor Annabella Sciorra, whose own encounter with Weinstein fell beyond the statute of limitations. Instead, her testimony attempted to outline the defendant’s history of sexual assault and harassment.
Sciorra’s account of her alleged attack took place in Gramercy Park, Manhattan during the winter of 1993/94. After a dinner with Weinstein and some friends, Weinstein offered to take Sciorra to her apartment. After dropping Sciorra there, Weinstein came up some time later, knocked on her door, and forced his way into the apartment.
After checking she was alone, Weinstein began to undress as Sciorra, beginning to understand what Weinstein wanted, she backed up towards the bathroom. Weinstein at that time weighed around 300lbs (135kg) against the 110-115lbs (50-52kg) that Sciorra weighed. The defendant grabbed and took Sciorra into the bedroom and pinned her arms above her, which Sciorra demonstrated in court.
“He raped me. I was trying to fight but I couldn’t because he had my hands locked.”
At this point in her testimony, Sciorra openly cried, recounting how Weinstein ejaculated on her nightgown, saying “I have perfect timing”. Following this, Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on Sciorra, stating; “This is for you.”
“It was so disgusting that my body started to shake in a way that was very unusual,” Sciorra told the court. “It was like a seizure.” After the rape, Sciorra suffered depression, beginning to self-harm and self-medicate with alcohol.
Rosie Perez, a friend of Sciorra, testified that she was called and informed about the alleged rape around this time. A few months after, Sciorra confided to Perez that Weinstein was the perpetrator but swore Perez to secrecy and forbidding her from calling the police.
Despite Weinstein’s infamy during the #MeToo movement, Sciorra was the only celebrity who accused Weinstein of sexual assault whose testimony made it to trial.
The First Witness
One of the two witnesses who form the heart of the case, Miriam Haley was a production assistant working for The Weinstein Company on Project Runway in 2006. Weinstein and Haley met at the premiere of The Aviator in 2004, where Haley rejected his advances. Despite this, Weinstein hired her to work on Project Runway and still kept in contact with her after the production wrapped.
Weinstein continued to contact her before arriving at her apartment unannounced. He forced himself into the apartment, where Haley told Weinstein that she’d heard of his reputation with women, to which Weinstein took offence and left.
Later, Weinstein invited Haley to his Soho apartment, sending a driver to take her and an assistant to accompany her to the elevator. Once in the apartment, Weinstein began making unreciprocated advances to Haley and eventually forced her into the bedroom to begin forcibly performing oral sex on her. Haley said “no” multiple times as well as stating that she was menstruating, to which Weinstein responded by removing her tampon and continuing.
“I was in so much shock at the time that I just checked out at that point. I just checked out and endured it because that was the only safe thing to do.”
On a second occasion, Haley agreed to meet Weinstein again in New York, “At that point, I just thought, ‘Here we go again.’ I just felt like an idiot.” Weinstein took her to the bedroom and forced intercourse on her, calling her “bitch” and “whore” during the act. “I was just lying there motionless and just saying ‘I’m not a bitch, I’m not a whore.’”
Haley kept silent about the incident as she was “deeply embarrassed” and blamed herself. Weinstein’s defense questioned Haley’s continued communication with Weinstein following both incidents, such as emailing and pitching to Weinstein about a prospective prank show called “Trash TV”.
After the initial assault, Haley confided with her roommate Elizabeth Entin, who gave supporting testimony for Haley, “She told me she had gone to the apartment of Harvey Weinstein, she had assumed it was work-related but he started rubbing her shoulders and kissing her as she said ‘No, no.’”
Entin’s response to this was criticized by defense lawyer Donna Rotunno, who questioned why Entin recommended Haley consult an attorney over the police. Entin responded, “I was thinking if anyone was a victim of sexual assault they should stand up for themselves in a criminal prosecution as they are entitled to.”
Judge James Burke allowed prosecutors to show the jurors a series of photos of Weinstein in various stages of his career, including one of Weinstein in the company of former President Bill Clinton.
Lead prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon explained that these photos were necessary to display the level of power Weinstein possessed, “The witnesses say the power differential between them and Harvey Weinstein was tremendous – you have a woman brought up in a dairy farm … he was everything and she was nothing.”
The “Prior Bad Act” Witnesses
Alongside the two main witnesses were the four “prior bad act” witnesses. These witnesses are individuals whose testimony is evidence of the defendant’s alleged patterns of behavior as a serial offender. This includes Sciorra as well as at-the-time aspiring actresses Dawn Dunning and Tarale Wulff, and Lauren Young, who intended to show Weinstein a biographical script.
In 2004, Dunning went to what she believed to be a business meeting with Weinstein. When she arrived, Weinstein was clothed only in a bathrobe and had three contracts in front of him. Weinstein allegedly said, “Here’s contracts for my next three films. I’ll sign them today if you have a threesome with me and my assistant.”
Dunning laughed, thinking Weinstein was joking. Weinstein instead began shouting, “This is how the business works. This is how actresses got where they are.” Dunning would later meet Weinstein again when he staged a screentest in a hotel and allegedly put his hand up her skirt.
In 2005, Wulff met Weinstein at the restaurant where she worked as a waitress. Weinstein led her to a private area of the restaurant later that night and began masturbating in front of her. On another occasion, Wulff was approached by a Weinstein Company employee to read a script. She was taken to Weinstein’s apartment by a driver, believing she would be going to a café. Once there, Weinstein allegedly held her down on the bed and forced intercourse on her.
In 2013, Young was invited by a female acquaintance to meet Weinstein at a hotel and discuss the script Young wanted to sell to The Weinstein Company. Weinstein, Young, and the acquaintance went upstairs to Weinstein’s room when the acquaintance shut the door on Weinstein and Young.
Weinstein then undressed and turned on the shower, “He stepped in front of me when I went to approach the door with his naked body right in front of me. I felt so trapped.” Weinstein then pushed her against the bathroom sink and masturbated while groping her breast.
During cross-examination, defense lawyer Damon Cheronis dramatically revealed the dress that Young was wearing that night and hasn’t worn since. Cheronis questioned why Young had only found the dress three days earlier to her testimony, to which Young responded that the dress was found in a box of clothes from a house move.
In a surprisingly common testimony, Young was asked by prosecutors if Weinstein’s anatomy was memorable in any way. Young stated that Weinstein’s genitalia, “looked like it had been cut and sewn back on, not a normal-looking scar from circumcision. Something looked wrong. I didn’t really see balls in a sack.”
This same focus on the defendant’s reproductive organs was instigated by the testimony of an unnamed key witness. This witness, after some questioning by prosecutors, eventually found herself describing Weinstein’s unique physique, “He does not have testicles and it appears he has a vagina.”
The Unnamed Second Witness and Donna Rotunno
The second key witness for the prosecution’s case was an unnamed woman who had a lengthy complicated relationship with Weinstein. Raised on a farm with a highly religious family, the unnamed witness moved to Los Angeles as a teenager with aspirations to become an actor, where she met Weinstein.
She described various accounts of Weinstein’s coercive behaviour to attain sexual acts, “If he heard the word ‘no’, it was like a trigger for him.” Once, before intercourse, Weinstein used the bathroom where the unnamed witness would later discover a needle in the trash that contained erectile dysfunction medication.
The witness’ testimony lasted for over 12 hours over the course of three days. On the second day, Donna Rotunno cross-examined her so intensely over four hours that the witness suffered a panic attack, forcing the court to adjourn for the day.
Rotunno interrogated: “You manipulated Mr. Weinstein every single time you saw him, isn’t that correct? Every time you engaged in consensual sexual encounters with him you manipulated him, isn’t that correct? You made him feel you wanted sexual relations with him.” The witness denied these questions.
It was when Rotunno had the witness read one of her emails to an ex-boyfriend that referred to a past sexual assault before Weinstein that the witness broke down.
Rotunno, a defense lawyer based in Chicago who specializes in defending men accused of sex crimes, had a strong record of intense cross-examination and defense work. Before Weinstein, she had only lost a case once across the 40 men she had represented.
Although Weinstein’s defense had promised in their opening statements to avoid victim blaming, Rotunno’s cross-examination of the unnamed witness sought to discredit her testimony so thoroughly that it bordered on such behaviour.
In an interview with the New York Times podcast, The Daily, Rotunno has refuted the criticism against her, “My job is to ask questions – there’s always more than one side to a story.” Despite being a self-proclaimed feminist, Rotunno addressed the #MeToo movement’s impact on the legal system by saying, “We have created a society of celebrity victimhood, where women don’t have to take any responsibility for their actions.”
When asked on the podcast if she had ever been sexually assaulted, Rotunno responded, “I have not. Because I never put myself in that position.”
The Defence
Model Claudia Salinas, who witness Lauren Young referred to in her testimony as a female acquaintance who closed the door on Young and Weinstein, was brought to testify by the defence.
“If I had done that I would have remembered that – I have never done that at any time,” refuted Salinas.
Salinas’ was shown pictures of Weinstein’s hotel suite and stated that she did not recognise it. Prosecutor Meghan Hast told the court that in an early discussion with the district attorney Salinas had admitted she couldn’t remember if she had or not.
Hast said: “Do you remember telling us, ‘It’s possible that we went up to his room because Harvey Weinstein would always get people up to his room at the Montage’?”
Salinas: “I don’t remember saying that.”
Hast: “Do you remember telling us, ‘I don’t remember being up in the bathroom but I’m not saying it isn’t true’?”
Salinas responded: “What’s true is I wasn’t there.”
Hast questioned whether Salinas wouldn’t admit to closing the door for fear it would affect her career or attempted to keep Young silent, both of which Salinas denied.
Weinstein’s team also brought Talita Maia, a Brazilian actress and former friend of the unnamed witness. Maia told the courtroom that the witness had spoken fondly of Weinstein, calling him her, “spiritual soulmate.”
Maia explained that the witness and herself had a falling out and that she was there to testify because of a subpoena, “I don’t want to be here at all. I don’t hate her or anything like that.”
Elizabeth Loftus, a cognitive psychologist, testified about the accuracy of the witness’ memories. With some of these allegations having taken place over a decade ago, the testimony of the witness’ may be undermined by false memories. These false memories “can be experienced with a great deal of detail, a great deal of emotion, even though they’re false. The emotion is not a guarantee you’re dealing with an authentic memory.”
This strategy by the Weinstein defense attempted to invalidate witness testimony by casting doubt on the accuracy of their memories. A strategy that may have had some influence seeing as Weinstein was acquitted of the more serious charges of predatory sexual assault and rape in the first degree.
Weinstein himself decided not to take the stand after a thirty-minute deliberation with his lawyers.
Closing Statements
Rotunno began closing statements with a plea to the jurors to overcome the effects of the #MeToo movement, saying that they lived in an “alternate universe” where “women are not responsible for the parties they attend, the men they flirt with, the choices they make to further their own careers, the hotel room invitations and the plane tickets they accept”.
Rotunno elaborated: “In this script, the powerful man is the villain, and he’s so powerful and large that no woman would want to sleep with him.”
“Have the courage to make the right decision, no matter how unpopular you might be when you get back to work or your home. You can show the world that here in New York, here in the United States, we will not allow outside forces to dictate.”
When asked what he thought of Rotunno’s closing statement, Weinstein commented, “I loved it. I called it the Queen’s speech.”
Following Rotunno’s closing statement the next day, prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Osborn accused Weinstein of being “master of his universe”, an individual who carried out his crimes with efficiency and intimidation so as to silence them.
“He made sure he had contact with them so that they wouldn’t one day walk out of the shadows and call him exactly what he was: an abusive rapist. He was wrong.”
Illuzzi-Osborn’s strongest technique was to repeat a faux-Weinstein slogan, “Harvey Weinstein everything, witness nothing.” She stressed how Weinstein kept his victims isolated to increase their feeling of alienation, “Stupid and belittled people do not complain, they don’t stick up for themselves and they sure as hell don’t complain about their shame in a public place like a courtroom.”
But, after five day of careful deliberation, the jurors decided to convict to wide public agreement. Weinstein has now been booked into Riker’s Island until his next trial in Los Angeles where he is accused of sexually assaulting two women over a two-day period in February 2013.
Hopefully, this conviction will herald the way for future cases and appropriate judicial policies regarding sex crimes.
Edit: Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison on March 11th. Weinstein’s lawyers responded with outrage at the sentencing.”We were looking for fairness and we didn’t get it,” said Rotunno. They also objected to the length of his sentence, citing Weinstein’s extensive illnesses. Weinstein said in a statement to the judge,”I really feel remorse for this situation. I feel it deeply in my heart.”
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