A New York jury of seven women and five men are nearly set to begin deliberations in his sexual assault and rape retrial on after the disgraced movie mogul’s defense concluded its closing argument Tuesday afternoon.
The prosecution has one last turn to present its final thoughts Wednesday, after which the panel will begin to deliberate whether he raped one woman in 2006 and assaulted two others that same year, all of whom have testified.
Though Weinstein told his lawyers he wanted to testify in his own defense, they ultimately decided it would be too risky. He did, however, take the unusual step of granting a jailhouse interview, to Candace Owens, telling the conservative commentator that sexual encounters with the women was consensual and purely “transactional.”
Weinstein defense lawyer Arthur Aidala said in Wednesday’s closing argument that the women accused him of assault so they could win settlements in the civil cases and advance their flagging Hollywood careers, calling Jessica Mann, Miriam Haley and Kaja Sokola women with “broken dreams” who wanted to “cut the line.”
Mann testified May 20 that she started a consensual sexual relationship with Weinstein, but after she tried to end it by telling him she was seeing someone else, he grabbed, dragged, forcefully undressed and raped her. Sokola told the jury on May 8 that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in a Manhattan hotel. Another accuser, Miriam Haley, testified April 30 that Weinstein forced oral sex on her in 2006, also in a hotel room.
The retrial that was triggered after a New York appeals court threw out Weinstein’s 2020 conviction over improper testimony from women whose accusations were not included in the charges. Weinstein’s conviction in a California court, which allowed New York authorities to hold him while he awaited retrial, is being appealed.
