A jury has started deliberations in the rape trial of Harvey Weinstein
The jury is weighing the evidence Tuesday after often-emotional testimony from multiple women who accused him of sexual assault. Weinstein is charged with raping a woman in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013 and forcibly performed oral sex on another woman in 2006. Other accusers testified as part of the prosecution's effort to show he used the same tactics to victimize many women over the years.
Prosecutors completed their closing arguments last week by saying he considered himself such a big shot in Hollywood that he thought he could get away with treating aspiring actresses like “complete disposables.” The prosecutors were looking to focus the jury's attention back on the accusers who testified and their harrowing accounts alleging rapes, forced oral sex, groping, masturbation, lewd propositions and casting-couch moments.
The defense contends that the two women he is charged with attacking were opportunists who willingly latched on to Weinstein and acquiesced to sexual encounters with him because they thought it would help their careers. Weinstein's lawyer told jurors that prosecutors in Weinstein's case acted like moviemakers and conjured up a world where women aren't responsible for how they interact with men.
Weinstein maintains any sexual conduct was consensual.
