Weinstein’s ‘ultimate feminist’ full of cringeworthy claptrap
ONE of the many outcomes to be celebrated in the guilty verdict returned on rapist Harvey Weinstein is the defeat shared by his insidious lawyer Donna Rotunno.
The “ultimate feminist” as she dubbed herself, Rotunno was in reality the “ultimate anti-feminist”, who tore at her fellow women inside and outside of the courtroom.
She is an accomplished lawyer who has exploited fully the lucrative niche of defending sexual predators, and in the past 15 years, Rotunno has handled more than 40 sexual mis-conduct-related cases.
There is no reason a female shouldn’t defend an alleged sexual predator, who is entitled to a fair trial with the lawyer of their choosing.
But, as Rotunno admitted herself, it is often a cynical ploy, on the premise the optics of a woman interrogating another woman seems less objectionable to the jury.
But Rotunno was a public relations disaster.
She may have been smart in the courtroom but she was clumsy in media interviews, where she hoped to manoeuvre a backlash against the #MeToo movement, which the Weinstein case helped launch.
She said: “Women may rue the day that all of this started, when no one asks them out on a date and no one holds the door open for them and no one tells them that they look nice.”
Her cringeworthy claptrap fell straight out of a 50s handbook on how to find a husband and made her appear anachronistic and dumb.
When she said she had never been a victim of sexual assault because she would never put herself in that position, it was not only saying women are responsible for being attacked but all men are potential rapists, unable to help themselves from disrobing in a business meeting.
When she cross-examined key accuser Jessica Mann, she reduced her to sobbing and the case had to be paused. But the jury believed Mann and agreed that she had been raped. Annabella Sciorra, who accused Weinstein of rape in her apartment, was asked by Rotunno why she hadn’t fought him off.
She said: “Why didn’t you try to run out of the apartment? Did you scratch him? Try to poke him in the eyes?”
Sciorra answered, “He was too big” to fight off. “He was frightening.”
Rotunno played on all the rape myths which have perpetuated the culture in which Weinstein could indulge his perversion and ignored the reality that most women freeze during rape.
Similarly, when she held up victims’ continued contact with Weinstein as proof they had given consent, it ignored the psychological control a powerful predator like Weinstein held over them.
After the verdict, she appeared peaky and shell-shocked, like the door had been opened for her and slammed back in her face.
Less the cat who got the cream and more moggy with its tail chewed off – satisfyingly by another female lawyer, Joan Illuzzi-Orbon.
The prosecutor, the antidote to the toxic Rotunno, was a straighttalking Staten Island mother of two who kept a low media profile and let her skill do the talking. She is a feminist and a team player, known as “a soldier of justice” and we salute her.
Rotunno, who accused women of exploiting their femininity, hawked hers to the highest bidder.
Weinstein is unlikely to hire her for the case he now faces in Los Angeles, because she failed and wasn’t worth the money.
Wonder how she likes those optics.