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LOS ANGELES (AP) — An attorney in Harvey Weinstein’s Los Angeles rape and sexual assault trial told jurors Thursday that prosecutors’ case rested entirely on asking them to believe testimony that showed they Untrustworthy women.
what you need to know
- Attorney Alan Jackson made closing arguments for the defense on Thursday, telling jurors not to look at the emotional testimony of the four women Weinstein is accused of assaulting, but to look at the facts
- The 70-year-old ex-movie mogul Weinstein has been charged with raping and sexually assaulting two women and sexually assaulting two others
- Weinstein pleads not guilty, his lawyer denies he had any non-consensual sex
- The defense will complete its closing arguments in the afternoon, and after the prosecutor’s rebuttal, the jurors will begin their deliberations
“‘Take my word for it’ — five words that sum up the prosecution’s entire case,” Jackson told jurors in his closing statement.
The 70-year-old former film mogul is accused of raping and sexually assaulting two women and sexually assaulting two others.
Jackson argued that two of the women were outright lied about the encounter, while the other two were involved in “sex trafficking” for “100% voluntary” career advancement. But after the #MeToo bombing surrounding Weinstein in The New York Times and The New Yorker — what Jackson called a “dog pile” of his clients — women came to regret it.
“Regret is not rape,” Jackson told jurors multiple times.
Weinstein has served 23 years in New York for the rape and sexual assault of two women.
Prosecutors in Los Angeles completed their closing arguments early Thursday after completing most of their arguments on Wednesday and urged jurors to complete Weinstein’s removal by convicting him in California.
“It’s time to end the defendant’s reign of terror,” said Deputy District Attorney Marlene Martinez. “It’s time to bring Kingmaker to justice.”
Weinstein’s lawyers closed the case by urging jurors not to look at the emotions of the four women as they testified, but to focus on the factual evidence.
“‘Trust us because we’re crazy, trust us because we’re crying,'” Jackson said jurors were asked to do. “Well, anger doesn’t make the truth. Tears don’t make the truth.”
He was especially adamant about the tearful, dramatic testimony of documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and former president of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. wife, who said Weinstein raped her in a Beverly Hills hotel room in 2005.
“It was a dramatic, overly dramatic performance,” he said. “What you see is a performance.”
Jackson believes that Siebel Newsom is one of the women engaged in “sex trafficking”. “She knows, she hates it.”
The testimony was also disingenuous, he said, because Siebel Newsom testified that she occasionally ran into Weinstein after the attack, including an encounter at a 2007 film festival that left her “Triggered”. Jackson pointed to an email in which Siebel Newsom had actually sought out a meeting with Weinstein.
Jackson told jurors that Weinstein was never even in a hotel room with the other woman he is accused of raping, the Italian model known in court as Doe 1. 2013 Los Angeles Film Festival.
“Doe 1 is lying. Period,” Jackson said, referring to the lack of evidence Weinstein was at the scene. “None of the witnesses can confirm that Harvey Weinstein ever walked through that door.”
He showed pictures of Jane Doe 1 smiling as she interacted with director Quentin Tarantino on the second night of the festival, with Weinstein sitting a few feet away.
“This is inconsistent with the violence she was subjected to a few hours earlier,” the lawyer said.
According to the allegations, the photos were taken earlier in the evening of Weinstein trapping model Lauren Young in a hotel bathroom, groping and masturbating in front of her in what was supposed to be a scene written about her. Script meeting.
Jackson said the meeting was real, but she made up most of the rest, focusing on details he said were impossible, like she was locked in the bathroom by a woman outside, and the room had a sliding door, which the photos proved didn’t.
“None of this makes sense because she’s making it up,” Jackson said.
The AP typically does not name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly or agree to be identified through a lawyer, as those mentioned in this article have done. All of the women Weinstein is accused of assaulting have appeared in court by Anonymous.
The prosecution is scheduled to make a final argument Friday morning, after which jurors will begin their deliberations.
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