Closing arguments in Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial concluded Wednesday with the defense team claiming the former mogul is being scapegoated as the face of the #MeToo movement.
“If this guy wasn’t Harvey Weinstein, would we even be here?” Weinstein attorney Arthur Aidala asked the jury.
“It’s not because the defendant is Harvey Weinstein, it’s because he raped three people,” Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg said at the start of her summations.
Weinstein is being retried on a criminal sexual charge and a rape charge related to respective claims from a former production assistant on Project Runway, Miriam Haley, who alleges he forced oral sex on her at his Manhattan apartment in 2006, as well as from aspiring actress Jessica Mann, who alleges she was raped by Weinstein in 2013 in a Manhattan hotel. Those charges were part of the 2020 trial, but Weinstein’s conviction was overturned in April 2024. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said he would retry the former mogul shortly thereafter.
Former model Kaja Sokola is the new accuser to this trial and has alleged Weinstein forcibly had oral sex with her in a hotel in 2006, resulting in another criminal sexual charge.
The #MeToo movement has been in the background of this trial, in part, because witnesses referenced the 2017 New York Times article as the reason they came forward. But this trial has also had less fanfare and fewer protests than in 2020 and comes as some attitudes around #MeToo have been shifting. A number of women who say they had also been sexually assaulted by Weinstein put forward statements in support of the three witnesses in this trial, but added that there’s now more “cynicism” about the movement and that “MeToo has fallen under the ‘anti-woke’ hammer.”
Judge Curtis Farber is set to give charging instructions to the 12-person jury Thursday morning, after which time they’ll begin deliberations. This comes after about six weeks of testimony and more than 20 witnesses from the prosecution as well as a few from the defense team. If he is found guilty on any of the charges, Weinstein will likely spend the rest of his life in prison. But even if he is not found guilty, Weinstein would remain in person for his 2022 conviction in California. His legal team has appealed that conviction.
In his closing arguments, Aidala continued to position the encounters between Weinstein and the women as part of consensual and transactional relationships that would help them jumpstart their careers without them having to undergo formal education.
“They don’t want to do the schooling, they want to cut the line,” Aidala said. “They want to take the shortcut. And they think Harvey Weinstein’s the shortcut.”
Haley testified that Weinstein had helped her get the job on Project Runway, and that she had continued to pitch him about a television project after the alleged incident. Weinstein had helped Sokola work as an extra on the Nanny Diaries (though her scene was cut from the film) and he got Mann an audition for Vampire Academy (though the casting director testified that she was too old for the part).
None of these projects got off the ground or turned into careers, and Aidala posited that if they had, the woman would not have taken part in the criminal trial.
The alleged incident with Sokola happened after Weinstein said he had a script for Sokola to read in his hotel room, and after Haley accepted an invitation from Weinstein to attend the Clerks 2 premiere in Los Angeles and met him at his apartment before leaving. Mann, who testified she entered into a consensual relationship with Weinstein at one point, but did not consent to the sexual encounter in the Manhattan hotel, initially saw meeting with Weinstein as furthering her career.
“He never had any interest in their careers. He had interest in their bodies,” Blumberg said.
Aidala also pointed to the fact that the three women had previously participated in a settlement fund for sexual assault claimants established after Weinstein’s company went bankrupt, and received close to $500,000 each.
“They couldn’t get what they wanted when Harvey was on top, so they figured out a way to get what they wanted when he was on the bottom,” Aidala said.
In his closing argument, and throughout the trial, Aidala and the defense team have sought to undermine the credibility of the three women’s testimony by pointing out what they say are discrepancies in their stories. Additionally, the three women remained in contact with Weinstein to some degree after the alleged incident, with some reaching out on business inquiries in warm messages, and with Mann continuing to meet with Weinstein, per emails Aidala showed to the jury again Tuesday.
Blumberg has countered that the women “knew it was necessary to stay on his good side.”
She also pointed to Weinstein’s power within the industry, showing photos of the former mogul with the Clintons and Michael Bloomberg, as reasons for why the women had stayed in contact and not immediately reported the alleged crimes.
“It’s not the person who’s sitting here in court today, in a wheelchair, it’s that man who had influence over all of Hollywood,” Blumberg said, in one of the first direct references to Weinstein’s health during trial.
One of the large issues hanging over the retrial has been the Molineux rule, which led to the overturning of Weinsteins’ conviction when the court of appeals ruled that the trial judge improperly allowed testimony from other women about uncharged allegations against Weinstein.
In this trial, no women other than the complaining witnesses testified about sexual assault from Weinstien, but the three women did mention other sexual encounters with Weinstein that were not charged in the case and that they said were unwanted. This included Sokola, who testified that Weinstein had touched her vagina and put her hand on his penis to masturbate when she was 16.
“It explains the nature of the relationship. It explains the power dynamic that was going on,” Blumberg said about the other encounters.
In addition to heated back and forths between the two sides, Aidala exhibited a large amount of showmanship during his closing arguments, which included references to his own sex life, imitations of the witnesses and a metaphor involving his grandmother’s red sauce. Blumberg, in turn, began by saying “I’d like to stay away from all the jokes, and bring you back to reality.”
A large photo of a younger Weinstein and his then-partner Georgina Chapman was placed in front of the witness box, facing the jury, with Aidala repeating his statements from opening arguments in which he admitted that Weinstein had repeatedly cheated on his wife, but then said: “There’s a lot of real estate between immorality and criminality.”
Before Blumberg’s summations continued Wednesday, Aidala had moved for another mistrial, which he has been calling for several times across the past several weeks.
“This is number 11,” Farber told Aidala, denying the request, before he then denied Aidala’s 12th, 13th and 14th mistrial motions related to the DA’s closing argument.
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