Lawyers say assaults preceded Weinstein Oscars wins
Prosecutors say producer attacked women during 2013 Hollywood meetings
LOS ANGELES— His films “Silver Linings Playbook,” “Django Unchained” and “The Master” would go on to win Oscars that night, Feb. 24, 2013.
Prosecutors now allege that just a week before his Oscar victory, Weinstein sexually assaulted two women he met during work-related Hollywood meetings.
That is the narrative Los Angeles County prosecutors will present to a jury — that Weinstein used his power as a Hollywood titan to lure women to his hotel room, where he sexually assaulted them. Weinstein has denied any wrongdoing.
Weinstein’s trial in a similar case in New York in the coming weeks may give a preview of how he will respond to the criminal charges against him in Los Angeles.
It took L.A. County District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s team two years to build the case against Weinstein, and much is riding on the details of the evidence her investigators collected. So far, prosecutors have released only relatively brief outlines of their case.
“Two years means the investigators and prosecutors have vetted every possible witness and lead. They explore every nook and cranny of these cases. They’ve thought through all the defence’s potential tactics,” said Dmitry Gorin, a former sex crimes prosecutor in the district attorney’s office. “Time is a valuable asset in an investigation.”
But Weinstein’s defence team has known since the fall of 2017, following exposés of his sexual misconduct in the New York Times and New Yorker magazine, that charges could be forthcoming in L.A.
“Weinstein’s defence team has been able to scoop up every potential exculpatory shred of information,” Gorin said.
Gorin and other legal experts said Lacey and her prosecutors must recreate events as best they can from seven years ago.
With little or no physical evidence, it will come down to the testimony of the alleged victims and others who may have been involved in any incidents or were around the mogul at the time, Gorin said.
Former L.A. County district attorney Steve Cooley said corroboration in sex crime cases can come in many different forms, and not just from witnesses. Prosecutors are expected to have other accusers testify against Weinstein, relaying their own allegations against the former producer.
“In the Weinstein case, there’s no question of the identity of the alleged perpetrator. Is there some corroboration of the elements of the offence as alleged by the victim?” Cooley said. “In a sex crimes case, there are provisions that allow one form of corroboration that can be provided by others who have been similarly victimized, allegedly to show intent, pattern, knowledge and to prove those elements.”
Cooley said those additional victims who testified in the trial of Bill Cosby were the reason the comedian was convicted.
“The Bill Cosby case bears remarkable similarities. That put that case over the top, other victim evidence. One woman alleged it, there wasn’t a lot of corroboration, but there was substantial other victim testimony that showed his motive and intent,” Cooley said.
Weinstein has been charged with four counts of sexual assault in L.A. County stemming from claims by a pair of women who say the mogul attacked them in hotels in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills in 2013.