MANHATTAN (CN) — Disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein is back in court after a New York appellate ruling gave him another chance to beat his landmark #MeToo rape case.
Weinstein, 73, was pushed into court in a wheelchair Wednesday morning for opening arguments of the highly anticipated retrial. The Miramax movie studio founder faces sex crime charges from the two women at the center of his first trial, as well as from an additional new accuser — Kaja Sokola, a model and actress who first met Weinstein when she was just 16 years old.
“The defendant wanted their bodies and the more they resisted, the more forceful he got,” Assistant District Attorney Shannon Lucey told the jury Wednesday.
Weinstein is charged with committing a criminal sexual act by forcibly performing oral sex on production assistant Miriam “Mimi” Haley in 2006 and third-degree rape by assaulting actress Jessica Mann in 2013. The charge from Sokola is an additional criminal sexual act count; prosecutors say Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her, too, in 2006.
Weinstein is accused of holding his deep Hollywood ties over the three women’s heads to coerce them into non-consensual sexual relationships.
“The defendant committed these acts when he was at the top of the entertainment industry,” Lucey said. “He had all the power. They had none.”
Lucey presented the jury with disturbing details from Weinstein’s supposed encounters with the three women. She said Weinstein “yanked” a tampon out of Haley before he violated her. Haley, Lucey said, “was begging him to stop.”
Sokola was only 16 years old when Weinstein lured her into a New York City bathroom and forced her to touch his penis, Lucey said. But Weinstein isn’t charged for that; he’s charged for performing oral sex on her without consent at a hotel room four years later, when Sokola “said over and over, ‘Please do not do this,’” according to Lucey.
Of Mann, prosecutors say she was assaulted several times by Weinstein, who once reassured her of her safety by saying, “I’m just a harmless old man” — only to rape her moments later and several times after that.
But Weinstein’s attorney Arthur Aidala chalked these three women’s experiences up to “mutually beneficial relationships” with his client, not illegal sex acts.
Aidala, a high-profile New York City criminal defense attorney, told the jury that these women “wanted him” and “needed him” because of his connections in Hollywood, and had consensual sexual relationships with Weinstein as part of a transactional relationship.
“You’re going to hear that they were flirtatious,” Aidala claimed of the women. “They fooled around with him consensually.”
Those relationships may not be moral, but they’re not illegal either, Aidala said.
“In this case, the casting couch was not a crime scene,” he added.
Prosecutors said that Weinstein’s accusers will testify about their experiences with the influential film procurer to let the jury decide for themselves. Jurors will also hear from Weinstein’s subordinates, who kept his briefcase stocked with erectile dysfunction medication and syringes, as well as hotel workers, who were advised to be mindful of those syringes when cleaning Weinstein’s rooms, according to prosecutors.
Weinstein’s former assistant Stefan Sterns was the first to testify on Wednesday. He confirmed that Weinstein’s underlings would have to carry a silver, hard-shelled briefcase “wherever we went,” but he stopped short of telling the court what was inside that briefcase after objections from the defense table.
In the original 2020 trial, a Manhattan jury reached a split verdict that found Weinstein guilty of those two crimes, but acquitted him on the more serious offense of rape in the first degree and two counts of predatory sexual assault. The verdict came at the height of the #MeToo movement, which was popularized largely by sexual misconduct claims against Weinstein.
But last year, a New York appellate court ruled that the case should be retried after the trial judge allowed prejudicial testimony from three women whose accusations against Weinstein were not part of the state’s case-in-chief.
Despite his conviction being overturned, Weinstein remained locked up in Rikers Island serving a 16-year sentence imposed by the Los Angeles County Superior Court for raping an Italian model. He was granted a transfer to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan ahead of his retrial to accommodate his numerous health issues.
Seven women and five men make up Weinstein’s retrial jury. At his original 2020 trial, his jury consisted of five women and seven men. Jury selection took five days this time around, with several prospective jurors expressing impartiality concerns that stemmed from Weinstein’s notoriety.
“Defense counsel asked my reaction to the defendant’s name and the first word that came to my head was ‘pig,’” one dismissed juror told the court last week.
Another potential juror told the court that she didn’t believe the #MeToo movement “went far enough.” Weinstein’s defense team dismissed her.
The trial could take as long as six weeks.