Hollywood titan felled in an era-defining trial
Playing out like a plot from one of his films, Harvey Weinstein was taken down by shocking accusations in the media and, ultimately, harrowing testimony
HARVEY WEINSTEIN’S final scene was wretched. Pale, hunched and dishevelled, the 67-year-old Hollywood producer was a far cry from the man who once inspired such awe and admiration.
He was led out of court in handcuffs, emotionless, after a jury of seven men and five women had found him guilty of rape and sexual assault at the end of the defining trial of the Metoo era.
The seeds of Weinstein’s downfall were sown in 2017, when reporters from The New York Times and The New Yorker published bombshell stories that he was a serial abuser of women.
Next, thousands of women came forward with their own accounts of abuse at the hands of other powerful men, using the hashtag Metoo. Business titans fell, politicians resigned and media executives were forced out of their jobs.
By May 2018 Weinstein himself had been arrested, and was led, handcuffed, from a Tribeca police station into court.
Weinstein was charged based on allegations from two women: Miriam (Mimi) Haley and Jessica Mann. A third woman, Sopranos actress Annabella Sciorra, testified in support of the charges, but her case fell outside the statute of limitations.
Outwardly, the multimillionaire producer and distributor of 81 Oscar-winning films always appeared supremely confident. Yet privately, as more and more women came forward to tell of their encounters with him, he must have known the odds were against him.
Lawyers hired by the mercurial producer found it impossible to work with him and by the start of the trial, on Jan 6, he was on his third legal team.
He settled, finally, on Chicago-based Donna Rotunno as his lead lawyer. A glamorous and determined figure, she strode into court in six-inch Ferragamo stilettos and declared Weinstein was the victim of an overzealous women’s rights movement.
Asked whether she had ever been the victim of sexual assault, Rotunno replied: “I have not. Because I would never put myself in that position.”
The team she led seized on high-profile problems with the prosecution. One detective assigned to the case was removed after it emerged that he had told an accuser to delete some of her phone’s content.
Shortly before the charges were announced, the New York district attorney announced that the lead prosecutor overseeing the case, Maxine Rosenthal, had been replaced by Joan Illuzzi-orbon. But the prosecution’s most thorny problem was that all of the women who accused Weinstein kept in touch with him after the alleged attacks.
Opening statements were heard on Jan 22. Damon Cheronis, lawyer for Weinstein, told the jury that the case was flimsy.
In February 2017 a text from Mann to Weinstein said: “I love you, I always do. But I hate feeling like a booty call.” The text was signed with a smiley face emoji.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that is not how you talk to your predator,” said Mr Cheronis.
Of Haley, he said: “Miriam’s story always changes to hurt Harvey.”
Over the next three weeks the jurors heard testimony from six women, many of them frequently in tears. The cross-examination by the defence was brutal: Mann suffered a panic attack on the witness stand and had to be assisted out of court, hyperventilating and sobbing uncontrollably.
Sciorra, 59, composed and almost regal, was called first. She said that Weinstein had barged into her apartment after a dinner with Uma Thurman and raped her in late 1993, early 1994.
She never reported the incident but told the jury it had devastating consequences. “I don’t remember much, ex
cept for feeling disgusting,” she said.
Haley, a 42-year-old producer based in London, was next. She alleged that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her inside what appeared to be a child’s bedroom in his New York home.
The last of the three women named on the charge sheet to testify was Mann, a 34-year-old aspiring actress from a deeply religious community in Washington state.
Over three epic and exhausting days she told her story – by turn tearful, furious, humiliated and defiant. She alleged that he raped her in a Manhattan hotel in 2013, but also had a three-year relationship with him, having consensual sex with him several times.
Though she said she was not remotely attracted to him, she did have “compassion” for him, and continued to engage in what she called sexual “role-playing” with him.
“I did have confusing emotions,” she said.
If the jurors were confused, too, they appeared to place great weight on the testimony of forensic psychologist Barbara Ziv. In what could be a watershed moment for rape trials, Dr Ziv sought to dispel various “rape myths” – in particular that victims frequently know their attacker and often do not resist.
‘I produced The King’s Speech. That [closing statement by Donna Rotunno] was the queen’s speech’
She told how they will often go on to form a relationship with their attacker, as a way of rationalising the trauma in their heads.
Dr Ziv, speaking directly to the jury, said: “One of the reasons I am allowed to testify in this court about sexual trauma is because people come to a sexual assault trial with ideas that are preconceived notions, and they are usually wrong.
“While many people are now aware that sexual assault and rape victims rarely report the crime, fewer would have known how common it is to maintain contact with your attacker,” she said.
Also key to the story was testimony relating to Weinstein’s hiring of private eyes to dig for “dirt” on potential accusers, and monitor those he believed likely to accuse him.
Sam Anson, an investigator, said that the film producer contacted him in 2017 – “agitated, concerned” and worried about women speaking to journalists regarding his sexual activity.
“Generally, the people on the list were those he suspected may be speaking to journalists,” said Mr Anson.
“He was concerned that articles would be written about him that would expose his sexual activity in a negative way.” Dev Sen, Weinstein’s former lawyer at Boies Schiller Flexner, confirmed that Weinstein had entered into a contract with Black Cube, a private intelligence firm founded by former Israeli security agents, but that was about all the judge let him tell the jury.
The public had by then been informed by Ronan Farrow, who wrote the 2017 account in The New Yorker, that Black Cube operatives had tailed him and repeatedly tried to hack into his phone.
In October 2019, the actress Rose Mcgowan filed a lawsuit in LA accusing Black Cube, as well as Weinstein and his lawyers, of intimidation.
The mogul sat impassively as the prosecutors made their case. When his lawyers made their cross-examinations, he suddenly would swivel in his seat and stare at them, watching his chosen cast intently.
He appeared pleased with their performance.
Asked about Ms Rotunno’s closing statements, he replied: “I produced The King’s Speech. That was the queen’s speech.”
Yet even the movie titan could not choose the Hollywood ending he wanted.
He will be sentenced on March 11.