Weinstein smirk speaks louder than words as justice beckons
day of reckoning, doing everything in his vast power to prevent it, despite his victims accounts leaving little doubt as to the emotional and physical distress he caused.
On the odd occasion he was threatened with exposure, he either bought his accuser’s silence, or set loose his pitbull lawyers. He is even said to have used ex-Mossad spies and enablers in the American press to discredit the claims against him.
The few who were unmoved by his bully-boy tactics, were then let down by the law and the Manhattan district attorney, Cy Vance Jr.
In 2015 the celebrity prosecutor refused to bring charges against Weinstein despite Italian beauty queen Ambra Battilana Gutierrez recording him on an NYPD wire admitting he groped her.
After taking no action in the case, Vance then failed to prosecute the producer on two other rape allegations brought by actress Paz de la Huerta.
Her lawyer called the DA’s actions “startlingly similar” to the way he dealt with Gutierrez.
Vance could undoubtedly have brought more charges against Weinstein, involving more women who’ve alleged sexual assault by him, were it not for New York statutes of limitation that place strict deadlines on many non-forcible felony assaults.
Indeed, for the 2004 rape incident he has been charged with, prosecutors will have to prove to a grand jury and then jury Weinstein forced the sexual contact – otherwise, the statute of limitations could make sustaining a conviction almost impossible. The prosecutors have a long road ahead to prove their case, against what will undoubtedly be a team of the best lawyers money can buy.
It is a fact Weinstein knows only too well and probably explains why he waltzed out of the police station after being charged with a smug grin on his face despite having to hand over $1 million in bail.
His attorneys will claim his actions were merely bad behaviour not criminal. They will say he is innocent and argue he did nothing wrong in a legal sense.
But what is certain is that he did nothing right in a decent sense.
In his denial of the charges, the producer’s lawyer has already told the court : “Mr Weinstein did not invent the casting couch in Hollywood.”
Maybe not, but what he did was take it and turn it into an emotional torture chamber.
Sure, Weinstein may have left court on Friday without his passport but he also left with that revolting smirk.
Weinstein clearly still doesn’t get it. He still can’t see the monster we all see. DONALD Trump may have locked himself and America out of the Korea negotiations by claiming he wouldn’t meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The two Koreas, with assistance from China and Japan, could provide for the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula without US participation.
Throughout it all, Trump has shown himself to be childlike.
First came his playground name calling, then his boasts of being bigger than Kim.
He then went and topped it all off with a letter to the North Korean despot, calling off agreed peace talks, that his 12-year-old son could have written better.
All-in-all it has revealed his incredible misunderstanding of human nature as he now scrambles to salvage the June 12 meeting in Singapore which he called off.
Most adults, even most children, who do not have an emotional or intellectual impairment understand how they need to treat a person with whom they want to have a serious conversation.
There must be a degree of respect from the beginning of their interaction. Trump has failed to show that. Now his unpredictable, ‘me-only’ foreign policy may yet prove a huge embarrassment to the States if the Asian leaders take this as an invitation to avoid working with America and forge a peaceful solution alone.
The prosecutors have a long road ahead to prove their case