Jurors in the Harvey Weinstein rape and sexual assault trial in Los Angeles reached a verdict on Monday, nearly three years after the disgraced movie mogul was convicted at a watershed sex crimes trial in New York City.
Weinstein, 70, pleaded not guilty in both trials and denies all allegations of nonconsensual sex. He is serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York, where he was found guilty in February 2020 of two felonies — third-degree rape and criminal sexual act in the first degree.
In both trials, Weinstein waived his right to take the witness stand.
The verdict followed weeks of emotional and sometimes excruciatingly graphic testimony from 44 witnesses for the prosecution, including Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker who is married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Siebel Newsom broke down in tears on the witness stand as she described the night Weinstein allegedly raped her in a Beverly Hills hotel suite.
“I’m trembling, I’m like a rock, I’m frigid,” she testified through sobs. “This is my worst nightmare.”
The trial took on higher stakes after the New York State Court of Appeals agreed in August to allow Weinstein to appeal his 2020 conviction.
In opening arguments, Los Angeles prosecutors portrayed Weinstein as a relentless sexual predator who lorded his status as “the most powerful man in Hollywood” over the women he abused.
Weinstein lawyer Mark Werksman countered that the accusers engaged in consensual and “transactional” sexual conduct with his client, accusing them of reframing their experiences as abuse in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
The defense called six people to testify during the trial.
In the 1990s and the 2000s, Weinstein and his younger brother, Bob, were titans of the movie business, producing seminal films like “Pulp Fiction” and distributing Oscar-winning dramas such as “Shakespeare in Love” and “The King’s Speech.”
Weinstein is on trial five years after The New York Times and The New Yorker first published explosive investigations into allegations of a pattern of sexual misconduct.
The stories inspired a wider reckoning with abuses of power in entertainment and other high-profile industries that quickly became known as the #MeToo movement.
Diana Dasrath contributed.
