The disgraced movie mogul’s lawyers submitted affidavits last month from two members of the jury who said they regretted voting to convict and only did so because other jurors bullied them during five contentious days of deliberations.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office said the claims were “inconsistent and implausible” and gave no legal basis to overturn his conviction.

One juror who alleged seeing “threats” and “intimidation” had earlier told the judge he only saw “playground stuff,” prosecutors said. Immediately after the trial, the juror told reporters, “it’s not like a fight was going to break out. No, obviously not.”

Weinstein’s bid to overturn his first-degree criminal sex act conviction “utterly fails, on both the law and the facts, to meet the standard necessary to set aside the guilty verdict,” prosecutors Matthew Colangelo, Nicole Blumberg, Shannon Lucey and Becky Mangold wrote.

They cited a centuries-old rule that the U.S. Supreme Court said protects verdict finality and prevents jurors from being “harassed or annoyed by litigants seeking to challenge the verdict.”

Weinstein spokesperson Juda Engelmayer said Wednesday that the prosecution filing “avoids the core issue raised in Mr. Weinstein’s motion — that several jurors reported being pressured, intimidated, and even verbally attacked into changing their votes. This isn’t about second-guessing deliberations; it’s about the integrity of the process itself.”

Judge Curtis Farber said he’ll rule on Dec. 22.

Prosecutors said they declined to interview any jurors before responding to the defense’s claims because doing so would “cause the very harms” the rule was meant to avoid.

Weinstein’s defense team, led by attorney Arthur Aidala, argued in court papers last month that the verdict was marred by “threats, intimidation, and extraneous bias,” and the judge mishandled juror complaints.

The two jurors said they felt overwhelmed and intimidated by others on the panel pressing to convict Weinstein of forcing oral sex on TV and film production assistant and producer Miriam Haley in 2006.

One juror said she was screamed at in the jury room and told, “we have to get rid of you.” The second juror said dissenters were grilled by other jurors and he would have acquitted Weinstein if voting was secret.

“I regret the verdict,” he said, adding that without the intimidation he believes there would have been a hung jury on the Haley charge.

Weinstein, 73, was acquitted on a second criminal sex act charge involving a different woman, Polish psychotherapist and former model Kaja Sokola. The judge declared a mistrial on the final charge, alleging Weinstein raped former actor Jessica Mann, after the jury foreperson declined to deliberate further.

It was Weinstein’s second trial on some of the charges. His 2020 conviction, a watershed moment for the # MeToo movement, was overturned last year. In addition to seeking to overturn his June conviction, Weinstein’s lawyers are also fighting to avoid yet another retrial on the undecided count.

Weinstein denies all of the charges. He faces up to 25 years in prison on the first-degree criminal sex act conviction. The unresolved third-degree rape charge is punishable by up to four years — less than he already has served.

The Oscar-winning producer has been behind bars since his initial conviction in 2020, and was sentenced to prison in a separate California case, which he is appealing.

Some of the juror’s new claims echoed conflicts that spilled into public view during deliberations.

One juror sought to be excused, saying another was being treated unfairly. The foreperson later reported pressure inside the jury room and said a juror threatened to “see me outside.”

Faber warned jurors that “tension and conflict” is normal, and cautioned them not to discuss the content or tenor of their deliberations, transcripts show.

When jurors came forward with concerns, Farber was strict about respecting the sanctity of deliberations and cautioned them not to discuss the content or tenor of jury room discussions, transcripts show. The two jurors said in affidavits that they did not believe he took their concerns seriously.

One juror said she paused before affirming the verdict “to try and indicate my discomfort in the verdict,” and later told the judge “the deliberations were unprofessional.”

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — After a month-long trial and nine days of deliberations, Los Angeles jurors on Monday found Harvey Weinstein guilty of the rape and sexual assault of just one of the four accusers he was charged with abusing.

But the three guilty counts involving an Italian actor and model known at the trial as Jane Doe 1 still struck a major blow against the disgraced movie mogul, and provided another #MeToo moment of reckoning, five years after he became a magnet for the movement.

Weinstein, who is two years into a 23-year sentence for a rape and sexual assault conviction in New York that is under appeal, could get up to 24 years in prison in California when he’s sentenced.

He was found guilty of rape, forced oral copulation and another sexual misconduct count involving the woman who said he appeared uninvited at her hotel room door during a Los Angeles film festival in 2013.

“Harvey Weinstein forever destroyed a part of me that night in 2013 and I will never get that back. The criminal trial was brutal and Weinstein’s lawyers put me through hell on the witness stand, but I knew I had to see this through to the end, and I did,” the woman said in a statement after the verdict. “I hope Weinstein never sees the outside of a prison cell during his lifetime.”

Weinstein was acquitted of a sexual battery allegation made by a massage therapist who treated him at a hotel in 2010.

The jury was unable to reach a decision on counts involving two accusers, notably rape and sexual assault charges involving Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. A mistrial was declared on those counts.

Weinstein looked down at the table and appeared to put his face in his hands when the initial guilty counts were read. He looked forward as the rest of the verdict was read.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys had no immediate comment on the verdict.

“Harvey Weinstein will never be able to rape another woman. He will spend the rest of his life behind bars where he belongs,” Siebel Newsom said in a statement. “Throughout the trial, Weinstein’s lawyers used sexism, misogyny, and bullying tactics to intimidate, demean, and ridicule us survivors. The trial was a stark reminder that we as a society have work to do.”

Siebel Newsom’s intense and dramatic testimony, in which she described being raped by Weinstein in a hotel room in 2005, brought the trial its most dramatic moments. But only eight of the 12 jurors agreed to find Weinstein guilty of those counts.

Jurors were deadlocked 10-2 on a sexual battery count involving Lauren Young, the only accuser who testified at both Weinstein trials. She said she was a model aspiring to be an actor and screenwriter who was meeting with Weinstein about a script in 2013 when he trapped her in a hotel bathroom, groped her and masturbated in front of her.

Lacking any forensic evidence or eyewitness accounts of years-old allegations, the case hinged heavily on the stories and credibility of the four women at the center of the charges.

The women’s stories echoed the allegations of dozens of others who have emerged since Weinstein became a #MeToo lightning rod starting with stories in the New York Times in 2017. A movie about that reporting, “She Said,” was released during the trial, and jurors were repeatedly warned not to see it.

It was the defense that made #MeToo an issue during the trial, however, emphasizing that none of the four women went to the authorities until after the movement made Weinstein a target.

Defense lawyers said two of the women — including the one he would be found guilty of raping — were entirely lying about their encounters with Weinstein. They said the other two had “100% consensual” sexual interactions that they later reframed.

Defense attorneys said during the trial that if Siebel Newsom hadn’t reached her later prominence she would be “just another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood.”

“Regret is not the same thing as rape,” Weinstein attorney Alan Jackson said in his closing argument.

He urged jurors to look past the the women’s emotional testimony and focus on the factual evidence.

“‘Believe us because we’re mad, believe us because we cried,’” Jackson said jurors were being asked to do. “Well, fury does not make fact. And tears do not make truth.”

All the women involved in the charges went by Jane Doe in court. The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly or agree to be named through their attorneys, as the women named here did.

Prosecutors called 40 other witnesses in an attempt to give context and corroboration to those stories. Four were other women who were not part of the charges but testified that Weinstein raped or sexually assaulted them. They were brought to the stand to establish a pattern of sexual predation.

Weinstein beat four other felony charges before the trial even ended when prosecutors said a woman he was charged with raping twice and sexually assaulting twice would not appear to testify. They declined to give a reason. Judge Lisa Lench dismissed those charges.

Weinstein’s latest conviction hands a victory to victims of sexual misconduct of famous men in the wake of some legal setbacks, including the dismissal of Bill Cosby’s conviction last year. The rape trial of “That ’70s Show” actor Danny Masterson, held simultaneously and just down the hall from Weinstein’s, ended in a mistrial. And actor Kevin Spacey was victorious at a sexual battery civil trial in New York last month.

Weinstein’s New York conviction survived an initial appeal, but the case is set to be heard by the state’s highest court next year. The California conviction, also likely to be appealed, means he will not walk free even if the East Coast conviction is thrown out.

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and the wife of California’s governor, testified on Monday that former film producer Harvey Weinstein raped her in 2005 when she was trying to build a career as a producer and actor.

On the witness stand in Los Angeles Superior Court, Siebel Newsom said she met Weinstein, now 70, at the Toronto Film Festival when she was 31 and had acted in some small film and TV roles.

Weeks later in California, Weinstein invited her to meet him at The Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills for what she thought was a business meeting, she testified. She was surprised to learn that she was supposed to meet Weinstein, then one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, in his hotel suite, she said.

When she arrived, Weinstein had no interest in discussing her projects, Siebel Newsom said. He went to the bathroom, called her over and began masturbating in front of her, she said, before touching her breasts and becoming “aggressive.”

“I was scared. This was not why I came here,” she said, often breaking into tears. “I just remembered physically trying to back away.”

Siebel Newsom said Weinstein got her onto a bed, though she cannot recall if he carried or dragged her there. He then raped her, she said.

“He was just so big and so determined,” she said. “This was hell.”

Weinstein, the man who became the face of #MeToo allegations five years ago, is serving a 23-year prison sentence for sex crimes in New York. He is now on trial in Los Angeles on 11 charges of rape and sexual assault and has pleaded not guilty.

Siebel Newsom, who was identified in court as Jane Doe #4, is one of four women whose allegations are the basis of the Los Angeles charges against Weinstein. Prosecutors had earlier said there were five accusers.

Siebel Newsom’s attorney confirmed in October that Siebel Newsom would testify in the case.

Defense attorneys have argued that all of Weinstein’s sexual encounters were consensual and that his accusers willingly took part in a “casting couch” culture to further their careers in Hollywood.

At the time of the meeting with Siebel Newsom, she had not met her future husband, current California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and she said she did not tell him what happened until after allegations against Weinstein became public.

In cross-examination, Weinstein attorney Mark Werksman questioned Siebel Newsom about why her husband had accepted campaign donations from the producer. She said the governor returned the money after she told him about her encounter.

Weinstein, 70, was convicted of sexual misconduct in New York in February 2020. He was extradited from New York to a Los Angeles prison in July 2021.

In New York, Weinstein is appealing his conviction and 23-year prison sentence. He could face up to 140 years in prison if convicted on all of the charges in Los Angeles.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty in a Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday to four counts of rape and seven other sexual assault counts.

Sheriff’s deputies brought the 69-year-old convicted rapist into court in a wheelchair. He was wearing a brown jail jumpsuit and face mask. . entered the ple.a for the disgraced movie mogul a day after Weinstein was extradited to California from New York, where he was serving a 23-year prison term.

Weinstein spoke only to say “thank you” to Judge Sergio Tapia, who wished him good luck as the hearing ended.

He now awaits a second trial on a second coast, and the possibility of another lengthy sentence.

Weinstein’s indictment involves five women in incidents spanning from 2004 to 2013. Most are said to have taken place in the hotels in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles that the New York-based Weinstein would make his headquarters for Hollywood business. Some took place during Oscars week, when his films were perennial contenders before the #MeToo movement brought him down.

He pleaded not guilty to four counts of rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery by restraint and one count of sexual penetration by use of force, charges that together could bring a sentence of 140 years.

Werksman told the judge that he was filing documents requesting the dismissal of three of the counts, saying they were beyond the statute of limitations.

“They’re baseless, they’re from long, long ago, they’re uncorroborated,” Werksman said of the charges after the hearing. “We are confident that if we have a fair trial he will be acquitted.”

The women were not identified in the indictment.

Attorney Gloria Allred, who represents two of them, said the age of the incidents was not a factor in their truth.

“Allegations of sexual assault and rape do take a long time to report, so the idea that they may not have disclosed to a law enforcement officer for many years does not mean that those are not credible,” Allred said.

The terms of Weinstein’s extradition require that his trial begin by November. Werksman said Weinstein had yet to waive that right. But it would be unusual for the trial to begin that quickly. Weinstein returns to court for a motions hearing next week.

A New York jury found Weinstein guilty of raping an aspiring actress in 2013 in a Manhattan hotel room and forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 at his Manhattan apartment.

He is appealing that conviction, seeking a new trial. Weinstein maintains his innocence and contends that any sexual activity was consensual.

Los Angeles prosecutors first charged Weinstein in January 2020, just as jury selection was getting underway in the New York City case.

More charges were added later in the year, and in March, he was indicted by an LA County grand jury. That indictment was unsealed by the judge on Wednesday, but the allegations in it are essentially identical to those already revealed in previous criminal complaints.

The pandemic and procedural delays meant that Weinstein’s extradition took well over a year. His attorneys cited his declining health as they sought to keep him at a state prison near Buffalo, New York, until jury selection began in the Los Angeles trial.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Werksman requested a health examination of Weinstein. He said outside court that he was especially concerned for Weinstein’s vision.

“He’s going blind in one eye,” the attorney said.

Once a major power in Hollywood along with his brother Bob and their movie companies Miramax and The Weinstein Co., Harvey Weinstein would be marked as the archvillain of the #MeToo movement starting late in 2017, when women’s accounts were published in the New York Times and the New Yorker. He would be arrested in New York seven months later.

Rumors about Weinstein’s behavior swirled in film industry circles for decades, but he silenced many accusers with payoffs, nondisclosure agreements and the fear that he could crush their careers.

“Anyone who abuses their power and influence to prey upon others will be brought to justice,” Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement Wednesday.

The Los Angeles charges came from a task force established to tackle sexual misconduct in Hollywood as #MeToo gained momentum.

Weinstein and porn performer Ron Jeremy are among the few charged by the team, which declined to prosecute more than 20 famous men because the allegations against them were too old or could not be corroborated.

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Weinstein, 69, and his legal team have spent months fighting Los Angeles County prosecutors’ attempts to bring the disgraced Hollywood titan to Southern California. But on Tuesday, Erie County Court Judge Kenneth Case ruled L.A. County authorities could claim custody of Weinstein, setting the stage for a second trial focused on the mogul’s alleged pattern of sexually abusing actresses and models he held sway over in Hollywood.

Case knocked down a motion to block the mogul’s extradition that was based largely around claims that Weinstein needed to stay in New York to receive proper treatment for failing eyesight and an argument that L.A. prosecutors had filed erroneous paperwork seeking to claim custody of him. Although the paperwork issue led to a delay in the proceedings during a previous extradition hearing, it ultimately fell flat Tuesday.

Weinstein dropped his head into his hands as the judge issued his ruling.

Erie County prosecutors said they had been in contact with L.A. County authorities, and it is unlikely they will seek to transport Weinstein to California until mid-July.

In March 2020, Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in New York state prison after a Manhattan jury found him guilty of rape and committing a criminal sexual act. But the day before jury selection began in Weinstein’s New York trial, former L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey filed multiple counts of sexual assault against the Miramax movie studio co-founder, accusing him of assaulting three women in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles between 2004 and 2013. Last October, prosecutors added six more charges involving two additional alleged victims.

Harvey Weinstein faces six more sexual assault charges in L.A.

Harvey Weinstein faces six additional sexual assault charges in L.A. involving two more accusers.

Weinstein’s defense team has repeatedly cited the mogul’s poor health as a reason to delay his extradition.

Attorney Norman Effman has said Weinstein is being held in a medical wing at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, N.Y., and has repeatedly asked for prosecutors to allow Weinstein to appear remotely for court proceedings in Los Angeles, citing two surgeries scheduled in New York and a number of serious medical issues. Previously, Weinstein’s defense attorneys have said he is nearly blind.

“We are disappointed by the judge’s ruling, but we are appealing his decision and have filed a habeas corpus petition in the Los Angeles Superior Court to prevent the Los Angeles County district attorney from transporting Harvey to Los Angeles until he can receive the medical care he desperately needs in New York,” said Mark Werksman, who is serving as Weinstein’s criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles.

Werksman said Weinstein needed injections and cataract surgery to prevent the permanent loss of his eyesight. Weinstein’s legal team in New York first disclosed the mogul might be going blind during his 2020 sentencing. In the habeas motion, Werksman said Weinstein’s surgeries could take up to nine months to complete.

It is not clear when a trial would take place in Los Angeles. The county’s courts effectively stopped all criminal trials during the COVID-19 pandemic, and have only recently begun to hold trials again, including the high-profile murder prosecution of real estate scion Robert Durst.

Werksman has argued that, under California laws governing extraditions, Weinstein must be brought to trial within 120 days of being brought to the state. In the habeas motion, Werksman alleged prosecutors were forcing Weinstein to choose between his health and his constitutional right to a speedy trial by forcing his extradition now.

Greg Risling, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, acknowledged Weinstein “is entitled to a trial within 120 days from his arrival in Los Angeles,” but did not offer a timeline for court appearances or elaborated on prosecutors’ plans to have Weinstein brought to California.

In April, it was revealed that an L.A. County grand jury indicted Weinstein on four counts of forcible rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery and one count of sexual penetration by force. The indictment allows prosecutors to avoid the need to hold a preliminary hearing in L.A., and was meant to preempt potential speedy-trial issues in Weinstein’s case, law enforcement officials previously told The Times. All five women accusing Weinstein of assault testified at the hearings, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss secret grand jury proceedings. Transcripts of the hearings remain under seal.

Weinstein has denied all wrongdoing and is appealing his conviction in New York. The allegations against Weinstein in Los Angeles echo those he was convicted of in Manhattan.

Fallen Hollywood titan Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison for committing a criminal sex act against a production assistant and for raping an aspiring actress.

Lauren Young, the only accuser whose identity has been made public in the Los Angeles case, has alleged Weinstein lured her into his room after a meeting at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills in 2013, where the mogul allegedly grabbed her breast and masturbated before she fled. Young testified against Weinstein as a “prior bad acts” witness in Manhattan. In the New York trial, prosecutors called such witnesses to testify about uncharged alleged acts to show a pattern of behavior.

A second accuser in the Los Angeles case is an Italian model who previously told The Times that Weinstein attacked her inside Mr. C Hotel in Beverly Hills in 2013. The woman, whose identity has not been made public, reported the assault to the Los Angeles Police Department in 2017, sparking an investigation that led to the filing of charges early last year.

The Times normally does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault unless they have chosen to come forward publicly or been identified in court. The names of the three other accusers have yet to be made public. In total, more than 80 women have accused Weinstein of sexual abuse in the U.S. and Europe.

James Queally | Contributed

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U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Mary F. Walrath on Tuesday approved the disclosure statement that will be sent to the women and the procedures that’ll be used to solicit their responses.

This version of the settlement still includes a $17 million sexual misconduct claims fund, an $8.4 million liquidation trust settlement payment to cover bankruptcy claims not related to sexual misconduct, and about $9.7 million toward defense costs for former representatives of the company, not including Weinstein himself. And instead of getting its own line item for more than $1.1 million in legal fees for services rendered to the debtors prior to the petition, Seyfarth Shaw will become an unsecured creditor and receive a pro rata share of the liquidation trust.

A sexual misconduct claims examiner will review each claim that’s filed, along with the documents and statements offered in support of it, and assign a “point award.” Those points will be used to determine how much money each woman receives. (If Jane Doe’s claim is assigned 10 points and the total points assigned across all claims is 100, she’d get 10 percent of the total victim’s fund.)

Once a sexual misconduct claim is allowed, each accuser will have the choice whether or not to release all future claims against Weinstein. If a woman chooses to release him, she’ll get what the examiner determines to be her full share. Those who choose not to release him will only receive 25 percent of the value assigned to their claim using the points system, and the rest will go to the insurance companies. (The deal includes a mandatory perpetual release of claims against The Weinstein Company and TWC board members and execs, including Bob Weinstein).

Three different ballots will be used to determine whether the settlement has sufficient support to move forward — one for sexual misconduct claims, one for other tort claims and one for general unsecured claims. (Read the order and see the ballots in the document below.) The court can approve the plan if it’s approved by at least two-thirds of the total voters and more than one-half of voters in each of the classes.

Ballots must be completed and delivered by 5 p.m. ET on Dec. 18.

Any objections to the settlement — of which there could be many given the extremely critical public response to earlier iterations of the deal — must also be submitted in writing to the court by Dec. 18.

A confirmation hearing is currently set for Jan. 14.

This article originally appeared in THR.com.

-Ashley Cullins

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