Jailed Harvey Weinstein goes on trial in LA over rape and sexual assault
- The 70-year-old former film producer is already serving a 23-year sentence for rape and sexual assault
- Weinstein faces four counts of rape and seven other sexual assault charges involving five women. He has pleaded not guilty. Jury selection begins on Monday
Five years after women’s stories about him made the #MeToo movement explode, Harvey Weinstein is going on trial in the city where he once was a colossus at the Oscars.
Already serving a 23-year sentence for rape and sexual assault in New York, the 70-year-old former film producer faces different allegations including several that prosecutors say occurred during a pivotal Oscar week in Los Angeles. Jury selection for an eight-week trial begins on Monday.
Weinstein has been indicted on four counts of rape and seven other sexual assault counts involving five women, who will appear in court as Jane Does to tell their stories. He has pleaded not guilty.
Four more women will be allowed to take the stand to give accounts of Weinstein sexual assaults that did not lead to charges, but which prosecutors hope will show jurors he had a propensity for committing such acts.
Starting in the 1990s, Weinstein, through the company Miramax that he ran with his brother, was an innovator in running broad and aggressive campaigns promoting Academy Award nominees. He had unmatched success, pushing films such as Shakespeare in Love and The Artist to best picture wins and becoming among the most thanked men ever during Oscar acceptance speeches.
Miramax and its successor The Weinstein Co were based in New York, where Weinstein lived and did business, but that did not diminish his presence in Hollywood.
“He was a creature of New York, but he was also a creature of Los Angeles,” said Kim Masters, editor at large for The Hollywood Reporter and a long-time observer of the film industry. “He had this huge Golden Globes party that was always well beyond capacity when he was in his heyday. He was the King of Hollywood in New York and LA.”
It was during Oscars week in 2013, when Jennifer Lawrence would win an Academy Award for the Weinstein Co’s Silver Linings Playbook and Quentin Tarantino would win for writing the company’s Django Unchained, that four of the 11 alleged crimes took place.
