What was supposed to be a tame day of jury selection in the disgraced producer’s case turned tense fast due to events near & farAP
Harvey Weinstein Threatened With Jail By NYC Rape Trial Judge; LA Case Bail Set As Jury Selection Starts
Events over on the West Coast and cell phones dominated the early part of the second day of Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial in New York City this morning – and almost landed the disgraced producer behind bars.
With far less press and far fewer onlookers than yesterday, the 15th floor courtroom of the Criminal Courts Building in lower Manhattan, Judge James Burke threatened Weinstein that he would toss him in state prison for relentless texting and using his cell phone in court.
“Is this really the way you want to end up in jail for the rest of your life by texting in violation of an order?” the Empire State Supreme Court Justice sharply asked the gray suited producer, who had moved up to sit at the defense table. Cautioning Weinstein not to say much, the extremely irritated Burke then turned his ire on attorneys Donna Rotunno and Arthur Aidala for letting their client have a phone despite having repeatedly been ordered not to – as is the strictly enforced case for everyone in Judge Burke’s courtroom.
“He did turn over his cell phone to somebody, but then he had two more,” Burke snapped at Aidala as a closed eyed Weinstein lowered his head at the defense table. With repeated apologies, the defense assured Judge Burke that they would ensure that Weinstein did not have access to a cell phone in court going forward. “I’m not looking for apologies, I’m looking for compliance,” snarled Burke.
Cell phones were not the sole fast track to a jail cell that the 67-year old producer faced this morning.
On a day that was supposed to be filled with the fairly monotonous pre-screening of a jury for the high-profile case, the rape and sexual battery charges laid against Weinstein by Los Angeles County District Attorney yesterday loomed large. “There is a risk that the defendant will realize that evidence against him is overwhelming,” Manhattan Deputy D.A. Joan Illuzzi-Orbon told Judge Burke and the court of the new charges against Weinstein and the reaction of flight by the producer that she feared as the NYC rape case progressed and the LA case potentially followed.
“We are asking you to remand him,” the prosecutor declared.
Currently out on $5 million bail with travel restrictions and an ankle monitor for the New York case, Weinstein faces a $5 million bail request from LA D.A. Jackie Lacey’s office. A sum that clearly wasn’t enough for Illuzzi-Orbon.
“We think that the people’ request to remand him is unnecessary,” Rotunno responded, noting that West Coast officials themselves haven’t asked for Weinstein to be taken into custody. Judge Burke agreed, rejecting the prosecution’s request and setting bail for the L.A. case exactly the same as the NYC case.
Defense lawyer Rotunno also took the opportunity to take a dig at her counterpart, noting that the L.A. D.A. had spoken on Monday about being in constant contact with Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr’s office, even though the East Coast team had said otherwise.
“If anyone believes that, I’d like to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge,” Rotunno said in court of Jackie Lacey’s contention at a DTLA press conference yesterday that it was “coincidence” her office had gone public with the charges on the opening day of the NYC criminal trial.
In that vein, the defense team sought an adjournment of the current proceedings because of the new LA case, as Deadline exclusively reported last night.
“It is the talk of the town,” Aidala emphatically stated, telling tales of people’s phones “blowing up” with news alerts and restaurant chatter he encountered and overheard last night at dinner.
“He is entitled to due process …he is entitled to a jury that is fair and impartial,” the well dressed lawyer said to Judge Burke on Weinstein’s behalf. “We are asking for an adjournment to pick a fair and impartial jury,” added Aidala in what is much a move to seed a potential appeal if required as it was to hit the pause button today. “Don’t we need a cooling off period?”
There is a growing POV that the LA case will never see the inside of a courtroom out West and was as much a political move for Lacey’s re-election bid as justice.
As anticipated, Judge Burke quickly dispensed with that adjournment desire, as well as additional requests for more time to question prospective jurors and adding a new question about media coverage of the L.A. case to the jury questionnaire. Calling the charges out of the City of Angels “meaningless” to the case in front of them, Burke did concede the defense may be allowed to present instruction to jurors about the West Coast case at some point, perhaps.
Jury selection itself is expected to last nearly two weeks with over 2,000 summonses having been sent out for the very high-profile trial. To that end, the rest of today is schedule to beginning pre-screening those jurors in batches of 125 individuals being brought into the courtroom as the process to slice things down to a clean 12 commence.
Prior to any jury candidates entering the courtroom, they were all given a 16-page questionnaire to fill out. Among the general questions of residency, gender and can they commit to at least six weeks for the trial, there were a series of inquiries about whether the potential jurors or their family members have worked in the entertainment industry and can they truly be impartial in the extensively covered matter “based only on the evidence you hear in Court?”
One thing all sides and Judge Burke agree on is that finding a jury acceptable to all will be a near Herculean feat, even within two weeks.
“January 21 will see opening statements or we’ll start all over again,” Judge Burke told those in attendance after a long-ish sidebar at the bench with the lawyers from both sides to work out the schedule. The trial itself is anticipated to last at least eight weeks, going into early spring – if there are no more bumps on the road, actions by other jurisdictions or other legal potholes.
This morning actually initially started out pretty smoothy, though became tense fast.
Manhattan Deputy D.A. Illuzzi-Orbon arrived around 9:03 AM ET this morning with a hunched over Weinstein, who came with his walker again, and his defense team following about five minutes later. Almost immediately, Weinstein’s chief lawyer Rotunno and one of her colleagues went over to speak with Illuzzi-Orbon and her fellow Deputy D.A Meghan Hast at the front of the courtroom. While it was impossible to hear what the quartet discussed, all had rather stern looks on their faces as they talked.
We now know it was hard time they were having a hard talk about.
First arrested in late May 2018, Weinstein is facing multiple counts of predatory sexual assault, one count of criminal sexual act in the first degree and one count each of first-degree rape and third-degree rape. Subject to travel restrictions reinforced last August 7, the 67-year-old producer is now out on a $5 million bail after first entering a not guilty plea on July 9 last year. Weinstein entered a plea of not guilty again on August 26 this year when a new indictment was added.
Accused by Ashley Judd in a now temporarily halted case, failing to get a sex-trafficking class action tossed out, and a more recent lawsuit from a women who says he abused her when she was 16 in 2002, Weinstein is also facing allegations from more than 60 other women that he sexually assaulted or sexually harassed them. At present, a number of those women are still reluctantly participating in the floated $25 million settlement that is part of an overall $45 million deal on the table. As well the L.A. charges of yesterday and the NYC rape trial, Weinstein is also still currently under investigation by federal prosecutors as well as other probes by the Manhattan D.A.’s office, the NYPD, the LAPD and more globally.