Nine jurors had been picked on Wednesday (April 16, 2025) on the second day of jury choice in Harvey Weinstein’s Me Too rape retrial.
At the identical time, the disgraced film mogul’s lawyers requested a decide to permit him to spend his nights at a New York City hospital as an alternative of jail during the trial, citing his many well being points together with most cancers and issues strolling that require the usage of a wheelchair to get out and in of court docket.
The jurors — 5 girls and 4 males — had been picked from a gaggle of 25 potential jurors who spent the previous two days answering questions from prosecutors and Weinstein’s lawyers to gauge their means to be neutral. They are the primary jurors picked after none had been chosen on Tuesday.
Jury choice will resume Thursday (April 17) with a contemporary group of about 80 potential jurors to start the screening course of anew. Judge Curtis Farber has mentioned a complete of 12 jurors and 6 alternates shall be picked.
The prosecution and protection every used seven of their allotted 15 peremptory challenges to reject potential jurors on Wednesday, leaving eight per facet.
Two different candidates had been eliminated from consideration by the decide. One had expressed dismay in regards to the justice system and complained that rich individuals keep away from culpability for wrongdoing. Another initially indicated he may very well be honest however then returned to the courtroom and mentioned he didn’t suppose he may.
“Defense counsel asked my reaction to the defendant’s name and the first word that came in my head was ‘pig,’” mentioned the person, who works as an funding banker. “And I apologize, but I feel a great sense of responsibility as a citizen and I take this stuff seriously.”
Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not responsible and denies raping or sexually assaulting anybody.
He leaned again in his wheelchair, peering at potential jurors as they answered questions that touched on all the pieces from their impressions of #MeToo — a motion spawned by scores of allegations in 2017 towards the ex-studio boss — to what they like to do of their spare time.
An accounting marketing consultant rejected by the prosecution mentioned he had “negative feelings” about the movement because his high school classmates had been wrongly accused of sexual assault. A lawyer who works in cryptocurrency compliance countered that “not enough has been done” as a results of #MeToo. She was rejected by Weinstein’s facet.
In searching for to relocate Weinstein for the trial, his lawyers argued that his keep on the metropolis’s infamous Rikers Island jail advanced is exacerbating his well being points and that he’d be higher off within the jail ward at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. Weinstein has been backwards and forwards quite a few occasions to Bellevue in latest months for remedy of varied maladies.
The Oscar-winning producer has quite a few well being situations, together with persistent myeloid leukemia, coronary heart points, diabetes, sleep apnea and sciatica. A latest tongue an infection was misdiagnosed at Rikers, requiring that Weinstein be hospitalized, and he has gained practically 20 kilos (9 kilograms) prior to now month, his lawyer Imran Ansari mentioned.
Weinstein’s lawyers filed a authorized declare towards town in November, alleging he was receiving substandard medical remedy in unhygienic situations at Rikers. The declare, which seeks $5 million in damages, argues that Weinstein has been returned to Rikers every time earlier than totally recovering on the hospital.
“Because of this mistreatment, he has been worn down considerably health wise, and now faces the stress of trial in this condition, which may very well lead to serious health complications, even death,” Ansari mentioned Wednesday in a press release.
Rikers has confronted rising scrutiny for its mistreatment of detainees and harmful situations. Last 12 months, a decide cleared the way in which for a attainable federal takeover, discovering inmates had been in “unconstitutional danger.”
Farber has but to rule on the switch request, and the difficulty wasn’t mentioned in court docket Wednesday.
Weinstein is being tried once more after New York’s highest court docket final 12 months overturned his 2020 conviction and 23-year jail sentence, discovering his trial had been tainted by improper rulings and prejudicial testimony.
He is being retried on two fees. He’s accused of raping an aspiring actor in a Manhattan lodge room in 2013 and a felony intercourse act by forcing oral intercourse on a film and TV manufacturing assistant in 2006.
He can be charged with one other depend of felony intercourse act primarily based on an allegation from a lady who was not part of the unique trial. That girl, who has requested not to be named publicly, alleges that Weinstein compelled oral intercourse on her at a Manhattan lodge.
Published – April 17, 2025 06:39 am IST
