NEW YORK (Reuters) -Harvey Weinstein’s retrial on rape and sexual assault charges got underway on Wednesday, as a prosecutor and a defense lawyer offered starkly contrasting explanations for the disgraced movie mogul’s encounters with women who hoped to make it big in Hollywood.
Prosecutor Shannon Lucey told jurors in a New York state court in Manhattan that Weinstein exploited his status as a Hollywood gatekeeper and power broker to prey upon and sexually abuse women, then assured their silence by holding their careers hostage.
“Harvey Weinstein had enormous control over those working in TV and film because he decided who was in and who was out,” Lucey said in her opening statement. “He had all the power. They had none.”
Prosecutors have portrayed Weinstein as a serial predator who promised career advancement in Hollywood to women, only to then coax them into hotel rooms and private apartments where he overpowered and attacked them.
Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala rejected that characterization, saying the Oscar-winning producer had “mutually beneficial” relationships with his accusers, who ended up with auditions and other show business opportunities.
“They realized very quickly: Harvey Weinstein, he’s got the key to that room where they all want to go,” Aidala said in his opening statement, referring to career advancement.
Weinstein, 73, dressed in a dark suit and navy tie, listened after being brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair.
He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree criminal sexual act and one count of third-degree rape, and could face decades in prison if convicted. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was in attendance as the retrial began.
#METOO
Weinstein is being retried one year after New York’s highest court overturned his 2020 rape and sexual assault conviction and 23-year prison sentence, citing errors by the trial judge.
The conviction had been a milestone for the #MeToo movement, which encouraged women to come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by powerful men.
More than 100 women, including famous actresses, have accused Weinstein of misconduct. He has denied assaulting anyone or having non-consensual sex.
Weinstein co-founded the Miramax studio, whose hit movies included “Shakespeare in Love” and “Pulp Fiction.”
His own eponymous film studio filed for bankruptcy in March 2018, five months after the original sexual misconduct accusations became widely publicized.
The new trial before state Supreme Court Justice Curtis Farber is expected to last about six weeks. Farber did not handle the original trial.
NEW CHARGE
In ordering a retrial, the state Court of Appeals last April said Weinstein’s first trial had been unfair because the judge let women testify that Weinstein assaulted them, even though their accusations were not the basis for criminal charges.
Bragg’s office is again accusing Weinstein of sexually assaulting former production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006 and raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013, charges he was convicted of in the first trial.
For the retrial, prosecutors added a new charge that Weinstein assaulted another woman in Manhattan in 2006.
Lucey said that woman is Kaja Sokola, from Poland, who claims Weinstein assaulted her when she was a 16-year-old aspiring actress.
Even if he is acquitted, Weinstein will likely spend the rest of his life in prison because he was convicted of sex crimes in California and was sentenced to a 16-year term.
Weinstein has had several health scares while being held in New York City’s Rikers Island jail, and in September was rushed to a hospital for emergency heart surgery.
Citing his health, Weinstein’s lawyers are seeking a court order to let him stay overnight at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for the duration of the trial.
Weinstein’s representatives have said he has received inadequate medical care at Rikers.
Lindsay Goldbrum, a lawyer representing Sokola, in a statement said the retrial “will test how far we’ve advanced in our collective understanding of sexual assault, power dynamics, and what it means to be a survivor.”
(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Nia Williams, Mark Porter and David Gregorio)
By Jack Queen
