“She has the final say,” said Harvey Weinstein lawyer Donna Rotunno before the start of the 28th day of negotiations in rape trial against the former Hollywood mogul, “and the last word is a powerful thing.”
You, this is Joan Illuzzi-Orbon. The chief prosecutor tried to destroy what on Friday morning Rotunno with skeptical sympathy from the global #MeToo movement in its final plea.
“The accused was the master of the universe and the witnesses were only ants he could step on without consequence,” Illuzzi thundered into the hall of the “new York State Supreme Court ”on Foley Square in southern Manhattan.
Harvey Weinstein was an “injuring rapist” who “manipulated and abused” women who wanted to gain a foothold in the film industry. “None of these women knew about each other,” stressed the prosecutor, “that is the pattern of one predator. ” For Illuzzi, the 67-year-old definitely belongs behind bars.
Donna Rotunno had previously requested the exact opposite and the creator of films like “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love” as the real thing Victim stylized. Weinstein was full of praise afterwards. As is well known, he had the film `The Kings Speech`, he said. What Rotunno in her five-hour plea to counter the allegations of potentially life imprisonment against him was the “Queen’s Speech”. “I loved it.”
Worked in tearful cross-examinations Donna Rotunno out that the only two in new York Legally relevant victims (another four women were heard, but do not play a role under criminal law) showed breaks in their descriptions.
The actress Jessica Mannthat indicates of Weinstein Being raped in 2013 and the production assistant Mimi Haleyiby Weinstein 2006 was said to have been compelled to oral satisfaction, admitted to having maintained close and sometimes sexual contacts with the former boss of the Miramax studio for years to come.
Rotunno presented text messages and emails that document intimate interpersonal relationships. Especially Jessica Mann kept looking for contact Weinstein, gave him her current phone number several times and ended digital messages with the formula: “lots of love”.
That an expert in the process compared this behavior to Stockholm syndrome, where hostages allied with their hostage-takers Rotunno unmentioned.
Prosecutor Illuzzi’s reading: Harvey Weinstein maintained contact with the women to keep them at bay. So that they don’t “emerge from the shadow and call it what it is: an“ injuring rapist ”.
Sometimes with soft words, sometimes with a loud voice, Illuzzi walked down the bank with the twelve jury members, seven men and five women, who will start discussing guilt or innocence next Tuesday. She recalled that since 2017 over 80 women, including many stars from the film world, Weinstein characterized as a serial offender who had ruthlessly exploited his position of power in the entertainment industry.
In the “universe” that Weinstein created, women were “not allowed to complain if they were spat on, demoralized, raped and abused,” said Illuzzi.
defender Rotunno painted a completely contrary picture. So said the invited Brazilian actress as a witness Talita Maia from that Jessica Mann opposite her Weinstein described as “soul mate”; no use of violence.
Rotunnos Point: Both “Victim“deliberately sought the closeness of the once influential film producer to help their careers take off – and therefore got involved.” Women have a choice, “she said. Only in the” script “invented by the indictment Pretended that women “are not responsible for which parties they go to, which men they flirt with and which hotel or flight invitations they accept”.
The lawyer appealed to the jury Chicagoto be guided by facts alone. After that, the accused, which is “unpopular” in some circles, must be acquitted. “You have to sir Weinstein dislike, ”added the lawyer, all dressed in black, with a calm voice,“ this is not a popularity contest here. ” But it is precisely “unpopular people” who are in America “Juries need the most”.
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