WEINSTEIN TRIAL Defense contends prosecutors have a ‘tale,’ not a case
NEW YORK — Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer told jurors Thursday that prosecutors in the rape case against him were acting like moviemakers, conjuring up a world where “women are not responsible” for how they interact with men.
“In the alternative universe that prosecutors have created for you, Harvey Weinstein is a monster,” lawyer Donna Rotunno said in her closing argument. But, she said, he’s an innocent man relying on jurors not to be swayed by a “sinister tale.”
Rotunno argued that prosecutors had to come up with a damning story about the oncepowerful movie producer because they don’t have the evidence to prove the charges.
“The irony is that they are the producers and they are writing the script,” Rotunno said, urging the jury to not buy into “the story they spun where women had no free will.”
“In their universe, women are not responsible for the parties they attend, the men they flirt with, the choices they make to further their own careers, the hotel room invitations, the plane tickets they accept, the jobs they ask for help to obtain,” or the messages they send, Rotunno said.
Witnesses testified they were seeking a professional relationship with Weinstein, the producer of Oscarwinning movies such as “Pulp Fiction” and “The King’s Speech.” Rotunno dismissed that as an expedient excuse.
“If they label it what it was, we wouldn’t be here,” she told the jury of seven men and five women in a case seen as a watershed for the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct.
“He was the target of a cause and a movement,” Rotunno said, asking jurors to ignore “outside forces” and weigh the facts.
“This is not a popularity contest,” she said.
Weinstein is charged with raping a woman in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013 and forcibly performing oral sex on a different woman, Mimi Haleyi, in 2006. Other accusers testified as part of a prosecution effort to show he used the same tactics to victimize many women over the years.
The Associated Press has a policy of not publishing the names of people who allege sexual assault without their consent. It is withholding name of the rape accuser because it isn’t clear if she wishes to be identified publicly.
Weinstein, 67, did not testify. He has maintained any sexual encounters were consensual.
“I made ‘The King’s Speech.’ It was the Queen’s speech,” Weinstein said as he left court.