Will Harvey Weinstein Go to Jail? After three weeks of sometimes rough debates, during which six women came to detail the assaults and rapes they would have suffered from the ex-producer of 67 years, the answer is far from over. While the jurors - seven men and five women - must withdraw to deliberate on Tuesday, there is no doubt that they will have in mind the historic stake of this verdict for the #Metoo movement.
"You are called to make an unpopular decision," summed up Thursday in her oral argument Donna Rotunno, the lawyer for the ousted producer, calling on the jurors to "ignore the media unrest" around this dossier.
Harvey Weinstein is on trial in New York for the sole acts of sexual assault - forced cunnilingus on a former production assistant in 2006 - and rape of an aspiring actress in 2013. The last count, that of " predatory sexual assault ”, for which he faces life imprisonment, supposes that he acted in series, which the prosecutors wanted to demonstrate by having four other women testify for whom the facts were prescribed.
Qualified accusers
Despite powerful testimony, such as that of Annabella Sciorra, the road to conviction seems narrow, however, the concepts of coercion and consent sometimes seemed blurred during the hearing. Donna Rotunno, formidable in her questions, thus unearthed friendly emails and text messages between Mimi Haleyi and Harvey Weinstein, after the attack that said to have suffered the ex-producer.
"I miss you big boy," she wrote one day, explaining that she wanted to maintain ties in the hope that he could help her find a job. She also described an unwanted sexual relationship, during which she did not struggle, saying that she was “petrified”… which Donna Rotunno did not fail to interpret as an a posteriori reconstruction.
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The criminal specialist in these cases qualified the other accusers as opportunists, ready to do anything to get work at the time, and today their quarter of an hour of celebrity. In an indictment against the #Metoo movement, she also called on jurors to reject the prospect of a world in which "women are neither responsible nor the parties they go to, nor the men with whom they flirt ..."
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But it was for Jessica Mann, who accuses Harvey Weinstein of having raped her in 2013 in a New York hotel, that she reserved her hardest attacks. The young woman had admitted having had with the accused a dotted relationship, punctuated by several sexual relations, over several years. At the hearing, she struggled to explain why she had continued this affair, while describing it as "degrading".
Deliberations look long
During a nine-hour cross-examination, so violent that it had to be interrupted after a panic attack by the young woman, the defense also dissected their correspondence, very friendly. "I know about emails with Harvey. I know it's complicated and difficult, but that doesn't change the fact that he raped me, "said Jessica Mann, whose credibility was undermined by several witnesses. Her ex-roommate thus claimed that Jessica Mann had said of Weinstein that he was his "spiritual soul mate".
"Master of his universe", disposing of women as "disposable" objects, "ants he could crush without consequences" according to Joan Illuzzi-Orbon, Harvey Weinstein himself did not speak, as the 'authorizes the constitution. The prosecutor called on Friday the jurors to believe the words of these women, but also to change their outlook on sexual violence. "Should we take the plane, should we expect it to be hijacked?" She asked, at the end of the proceedings.
PODCAST. The fall of an untouchable film producer
Due to the unanimity required to obtain a verdict, deliberations are expected to be long - possibly several days. If the jurors fail to agree, the trial would be canceled, but not synonymous with acquittal. The prosecution could choose to hold a second trial, as in the Bill Cosby case, convicted in 2018.
If acquitted in New York, the former Hollywood magnate would not have finished with the justice: on January 6, the Los Angeles prosecutor announced his charge for two sexual assaults. Harvey Weinstein is also the subject of dozens of civil complaints, although some of the complainants have accepted the principle of an amicable agreement for an amount of more than $ 40 million.