Jury begins deliberations in Harvey Weinstein rape trial
Jurors began deliberating Friday in the Los Angeles rape and sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein, after a final push from the prosecution.
The jury deliberated for about 2 1/2 hours Friday afternoon without reaching a verdict. The panel is due back at 9:30 a.m. Monday to continue deliberation.
Weinstein, 70, is charged with seven sexual assault counts involving four women: three counts of forcible rape, two counts of sexual battery by restraint, one count of forcible oral copulation, and one count of sexual penetration by a foreign object. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
"You have irrefutable, overwhelming evidence of the nature of this man, and what he did to these women," Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson told the jurors in his rebuttal to the closing argument delivered by the defense a day earlier. Thompson urged them to find Weinstein guilty of the two rape counts and five sexual assault counts he's charged with.
One of the women who testified is Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker who is married to California Governor Gavin Newsom.
In his closing, Weinstein's defense attorney Alan Jackson emphasized the absence of physical evidence of the assaults, none of which were reported to authorities until years later. He told jurors two of the accusers were clearly lying, and the other two had reframed "transactional" and "100% consensual" sexual acts with Weinstein as assaults after he became a magnet for the #MeToo movement in 2017.
"Regret is not rape," Jackson said.
In his rebuttal, Thompson guided jurors back through the evidence for each woman. He said the defense failed to show that any of the women had gained anything "transactional" from Weinstein, or that they had anything to gain by lying.
"Where is the evidence that there is any motivation," Thompson said, "other than to get justice for being sexually assaulted?"
Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench gave the jurors final instructions then gave them the case. They had just a few hours to deliberate on Friday afternoon before a weekend break.
The charges involve accusations from four women spanning from 2005 to 2013. The jury heard from 49 witness in more than four weeks of testimony.
Weinstein did not testify in his own defense in Los Angeles. He remains in custody.
Weinstein was convicted in New York in 2020 of rape and a criminal sex act for forcing oral sex on a former production assistant. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison. A New York Supreme Court has agreed to hear his appeal there. He was extradited to Los Angeles for the current trial.
The Los Angeles trial began in October.
Weinstein is the former head of movie production studio Miramax Pictures.