Will he be imprisoned for the rest of his life? The fate of deposed Hollywood magnate Harvey Weinstein is now in the hands of the jurors, who left to deliberate on Friday after almost two months of an incendiary trial in Los Angeles, where his defense tried to discredit his accusers.
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Accused of rape and sexual assault, the 70-year-old former “king” of cinema, who produced award-winning hits like “Pulp Fiction” or “The Artist”, was previously sentenced in New York in 2020 to 23 years in prison for similar offences.
During this retrial, four women testifying anonymously accused the producer in great detail of forcing them to have sex in hotels in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles between 2004 and 2013. A fifth ultimately refused to testify .
After weeks of harrowing hearings, often interrupted by sobbing victims, the prosecution has painted Mr. Weinstein as an all-powerful ogre, whose stranglehold on Hollywood — the films he produced have received more than 330 nominations for Oscars and 81 statuettes – has long prevented its victims from speaking out, for fear of repercussions on their careers.
“Reign of Terror”
“There is no doubt that Harvey Weinstein was a predator,” said prosecutor Marlene Martinez in her closing statement. “And like all predators, he had a method,” she insisted, calling on the jurors to “put an end to his reign of terror.”
“Hotels were his trap. Confined between these walls, the victims could not escape its imposing mass”, summed up the magistrate, relying on the similarities between the testimonies.
The ex-producer, who has always assured that all his accusers were consenting, refused to testify during the hearing.
For him, the stakes are high. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to more than 100 additional years behind bars.
The verdict of this new trial in Los Angeles is also particularly important, because after an initial refusal of justice, the Supreme Court of New York finally allowed him in August to appeal his 2020 conviction, which had been a victory. major part of the #MeToo movement.
Combative, his defense systematically questioned the word of the four accusers, as well as that of other women heard as witnesses for facts that took place elsewhere than in Los Angeles.
The prosecution “rests entirely” on the injunction “believe me”, denounced Alan Jackson, one of the producer’s lawyers.
“Regrets” or “rape”?
According to him, two of the accusers described encounters that never took place. The other two had consensual relationships in exchange for favors in Hollywood, he argued, which they later regretted and turned into accusations as they rode the avalanche of revelations aimed at Mr. Weinstein at the start of the #MeToo movement. in 2017.
The lawyer particularly incriminated Jennifer Siebel-Newsom, the wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who revealed her identity during the trial.
“Regrets are not at all the same thing as rape,” he said. “You can’t rewrite your own history, no matter who you’re married to.”
During two days of testimony, the actress recounted how a meeting in a hotel in Beverly Hills in 2005 turned into rape, after 45 minutes of pressure from the producer.
“I’m shaking. I’m crying. He knows that it is not consented to at all”, she explained in tears.
At the helm, she compared the method of Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers, who questioned her very insistently, to that of their client. “What you are doing today is exactly what he did to me,” she breathed.
In total, nearly 90 women, including Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow and Rosanna Arquette, have accused Harvey Weinstein of harassment, sexual assault or rape. But the statute of limitations has been exceeded in many of these cases, some dating back to 1977.
The ex-producer is also charged in the United Kingdom for sexual assaults which date back to 1996.