Editor's note: This story includes descriptions of allegations about sexual assault and rape.
Closing arguments in Harvey Weinstein's second sex crimes trial in New York are underway today.
In 2020, a New York jury convicted Weinstein of rape and sexual assault, completing the fall from grace of the legendary film mogul. But Weinstein's conviction was dismissed on appeal last year, and a new trial began in April.
Aside from Weinstein and his accusers, few of the people in the courtroom were there five years ago. The judge and jurors are different; so are the prosecutors and some of the defense attorneys.
The climate has also changed. During his 2020 trial, the #MeToo movement was at its height, and the careers of powerful men such as Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose and R. Kelly had recently come apart after they were publicly accused of serious sexual offenses. Detailed sexual assault allegations against Weinstein helped to catalyze the #MeToo movement when they were published in The New York Times and The New Yorker in the the fall of 2017.
But today, a number of prominent men accused of misconduct, from comedian Louis C.K. to actor Kevin Spacey, have begun making public appearances again. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is a leading contender to be the next mayor of New York City, and jurors on their lunch breaks might have seen his campaign posters around lower Manhattan. Cuomo resigned office in 2021 after an investigation found he sexually harassed 11 women. Donald Trump, who was found liable for sexual abuse in a civil trial in 2023, was reelected president the following year.
At the same time, powerful men in entertainment continue to be held to account. Weinstein's second New York trial, in state court, coincided with the sex trafficking and racketeering trial of rapper and music producer Sean Combs, also known as Diddy, in federal court just a few blocks away. That trial is ongoing.
Weinstein was separately convicted of sex crimes in California in 2022, but his legal team has appealed those charges, too.
Gloria Allred, an attorney who has represented many women making harassment and assault claims, including Mimi Haley, who has testified against Weinstein in this trial, told a gaggle of reporters outside the courthouse in late April that even with fewer high profile cases coming to light, the #MeToo movement is "alive and well." She said many women have been able to successfully obtain confidential civil settlements. "I just did one yesterday without ever having to file a lawsuit," Allred said.
A new trial with some key differences
Much of the #MeToo movement's power is contained in its name. As more and more women spoke up about their experiences, especially with powerful men, their combined accounts could credibly demonstrate a pattern of bad conduct.
But in this trial, prosecutors have less material to work with than in the first. That's because an appeals court ruled in 2024 that Judge James M. Burke, who presided over the first Weinstein trial, had wrongly permitted testimony that was meant to establish a pattern of misconduct by Weinstein. A number of women in that trial testified about alleged crimes that were not part of the indictment, under what's known in New York as Molineux testimony.
The majority on the sharply divided appeals court wrote that "it is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit untested allegations of nothing more than bad behavior that destroys a defendant's character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges lodged against them."
As a consequence, after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg decided to retry Weinstein, his legal team presented jurors with testimony from just three accusers, instead of the six who took the stand in the first trial.
Allred said the appeals court's decision to bar testimony from what she called "Me Too witnesses" was a mistake. "They could show what's called a propensity to commit certain crimes."
The accusations at the heart of the case
Weinstein is charged with two counts of criminal sexual act in the first degree and one count of rape in the third degree. The prosecution built its case around three star witnesses whose accounts had many points in common. All three women were young when they met Weinstein, and eager to get ahead in entertainment.
One of them, Miriam "Mimi" Haley, testified that she was a producer on The Weinstein's Company's Project Runway 2006, when she visited Weinstein in his SoHo apartment. After Weinstein allegedly lunged at her, she said she made it clear she did not want to have sex. Then, Haley alleged in her testimony, Weinstein threw her down on a bed, physically subdued her and performed oral sex on her. "I couldn't get away from his grip, I couldn't get away from him," Haley said. "And I realized that I'm like this is I'm getting raped — this is what this is," she said.
Her planner, which was produced in evidence, states that she had her period at the time. In testimony, Haley described Weinstein ripping a tampon out of her vagina.
Another woman, Kaja Sokola, said she met Harvey Weinstein for drinks in the spring of 2006 at a downtown Manhattan hotel, bringing along her older sister. Sokola was 19 at the time, and a model and aspiring actress. She testified that Weinstein told her there was a movie script he wanted her to look at, and she followed him to a hotel room upstairs, leaving her sister. Once the hotel room door closed, Sokola said, Weinstein pushed her onto a bed and began undressing her. "I kept saying 'please don't, please stop, I don't want this!'" Sokola testified. Weinstein performed oral sex on her. Afterward, Sokola alleged, "he said to me, 'you see — that wasn't so difficult.'"
A third accuser, Jessica Mann, said Weinstein raped her in a Manhattan hotel in 2013. Like the other women, she said in her testimony that she resisted but was no physical match for the heavyset Weinstein.
Haley and Mann testified at the first trial; Sokola was a new witness.
Allred, who is representing Haley, said, "She's doing it for only one reason … it's for the cause of justice."
Questioning the accusers
For Weinstein's large team of attorneys, clearing their client's name meant dirtying the three accusers' names.
"Any trial where you have witnesses such as complainants, making the accusations like these witnesses against Mr. Weinstein, you're gonna attack the credibility," Imran Ansari, a member of Weinstein's defense team, said outside the courthouse in April. "That goes without saying."
In his opening statement to jurors, Arthur Aidala, Weinstein's lead lawyer, rebutted the prosecution's claim that Weinstein held all the power in his relationships with the women. Aidala called Haley, Sokola and Mann "sophisticated" and "conniving" players who saw Weinstein as their golden ticket to success. "They're trying to cut the line," Aidala said, noting that the women hadn't attended top drama schools like Juilliard, Yale or SUNY Purchase. He described Weinstein's sexual encounters as "friend with benefits" arrangements common in the industry.
In cross-examination, the defense team sought to pull apart each woman's story by raising questions about their judgment and behavior. For example, Haley, Sokola and Mann all testified that they continued to communicate with Weinstein even after he allegedly assaulted them; Weinstein's attorney's honed in on this information. Mann testified that she continued to have a sexual relationship with Weinstein, and sought his company's help getting a audition for a part in a film less than a month after her alleged rape. Under cross-examination by defense lawyers, Sokola's sister, Ewa Sokola, said Kaja did not disclose the alleged assault to her or speak badly of Weinstein before 2017.
All three women have also received substantial civil settlements.
The defense team frequently claimed the court itself was biased against Weinstein, with his attorneys making numerous motions for mistrial over the course of the proceeding. All were denied by Judge Curtis Farber.
The accused
Throughout the trial, Weinstein, who is 73, sat at the defense table in a wheelchair, usually wearing a dark blue or charcoal suit. Court officers removed his handcuffs before the jury entered the room. Although pale, Weinstein appeared energetic, attentively watching witness testimony and conferring with his lawyers.
Weinstein has been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia and a host of other health problems, according to his attorneys.
His diminished physical appearance stood in contrast with photos the jury was shown of Weinstein at the pinnacle of his career in the 1990s and early 2000s: with Hillary and Bill Clinton, displaying awards for the camera with Gwyneth Paltrow, shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth II.
Weinstein was widely credited as a Hollywood tastemaker who made winning bets on such era-defining films as Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare In Love.
For years, there had been rumors about his sexual life. In the fall of 2017, the dam of accusations broke open with back-to-back exposés in The New York Times and The New Yorker. Each report included multiple on-the-record interviews with Weinstein's accusers. Within a matter of weeks, Weinstein was removed from the company he co-founded, expelled from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and left by his then wife, who has since divorced him.
Weinstein did not testify at his own trial. But he did give a rare interview to far-right podcaster Candace Owens in an episode released during the trial. On her show, Weinstein admitted he had been unfaithful to his wife and hurt people around him, but maintained he is innocent of the charges for which he is being tried.
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