Seven men, 5 women picked as Weinstein jury

NEW YORK — A jury of seven men and five women was selected Friday for Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial after an arduous, twoweek process in which scores of people were dismissed because they had already made up their minds about the disgraced Hollywood mogul.

Opening statements are expected Wednesday in the case against the 67-year-old executive who has come to be seen as the archvillain of the #MeToo era.

The once powerful and feared studio boss behind such Oscar winners as “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love” is charged with raping a woman in a New York City hotel room in 2013 and forcibly performing a sex act on another at his apartment in 2006. He has said any sexual activity was consensual. If convicted, he could get life in prison.

During jury selection, prosecutors accused Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers of systematically trying to keep young women off the panel, though the final gender makeup of the jury turned out to be more closely balanced.

For its part, the defense raised an outcry and demanded a mistrial because one of the jurors is the author of an upcoming novel involving young women dealing with predatory older men. The request was denied, but Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers continued to claim outside court that the juror had withheld the information on her questionnaire.

“We got the best jury we could get under the circumstances,” defense attorney Donna Rotunno told reporters. “I’m obviously not happy with what happened in the end there. I think that was an absolutely ridiculous decision.”

The defense said it wasn’t specifically trying to exclude young women but didn’t want jurors too young to understand the way men and women interacted in the early 1990s.

“That was a different time in New York and on planet Earth,” said another Weinstein attorney, Arthur Aidala,

A stooped Mr. Weinstein, shuffling out of the courthouse with the use of a walker because of recent back surgery, had no comment when asked his thoughts on jury selection. “Ask Donna!” he said, referring to Ms. Rotunno.