Harvey Weinstein being led away in handcuffs in May 2018, after he turned himself in on charges of rape and criminal sexual act. Photo / Todd Heisler, The New York Times
The authorities investigated Harvey Weinstein in 2015. He was indicted three years later, after a flood of public complaints.
Accusations of sexual misconduct had swirled around film producer Harvey Weinstein in New York and Los Angeles long before he was on trial in Manhattan.
Here is a timeline of events in Weinstein's journey toward a verdict.
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March 27, 2015: Prosecutors in Manhattan decline to prosecute Weinstein
Ambra Battilana, an Italian model, told New York City police that Weinstein groped her breasts during a business meeting at his office in Manhattan's TriBeCa neighbourhood. The next day, working with investigators, Battilana visited Weinstein at the TriBeCa Grand Hotel and secretly recorded him apologising for the encounter.
But after a two-week investigation by sex-crimes prosecutors, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., announced that the evidence did not support charging Weinstein with forcible touching, a misdemeanour.
August 2017: Weinstein hires investigators to learn who was talking to reporters
As reports began to circulate that journalists were looking into allegations that Weinstein mistreated scores of women over decades, the producer hired a private intelligence firm, Black Cube, to investigate what he described as "red flags" — or people who he suspected were talking about him to reporters.
Among those people was Annabella Sciorra, an actress known for her work on "The Sopranos," who claims that Weinstein raped her at her apartment in Manhattan's Gramercy Park neighbourhood in 1993 or 1994.
October 5, 2017: The Times and The New Yorker detail accusations that Weinstein mistreated women
The New York Times published an investigation detailing the accounts of several women who claimed that Weinstein abused or harassed them in incidents as early as 1990s.
Five days later, The New Yorker published an article about more women who were accusing Weinstein of sexual misconduct; it included Sciorra's account.
The articles added momentum to the #MeToo movement and put pressure on authorities to investigate the producer. Within a month, the New York Police Department said it was developing a strong case against him.
March 19, 2018: New York Governor orders review of decision not to charge Weinstein in 2015
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo ordered New York state prosecutors to investigate why Vance declined to charge Weinstein in Battilana's 2015 case. It had recently become clear that Vance had taken campaign donations from some of Weinstein's lawyers.
The investigation placed Vance's decision-making in the spotlight.
April 25, 2018: Vance puts new prosecutor in charge of investigation
Vance replaced veteran sex-crimes prosecutor initially assigned to investigate Weinstein with a senior homicide prosecutor, Joan Illuzzi. The personnel change reflected a tension between the Police Department and the district attorney's office over how to handle the case.
May 25, 2018: Weinstein arrested
Weinstein was indicted and surrendered at the 1st Precinct station house in lower Manhattan on charges of rape and criminal sexual act.
The rape charge stemmed from an alleged assault on an unnamed woman at the Doubletree Hotel in midtown Manhattan in 2013. She was later revealed to be Jessica Mann, a former aspiring actress from a small town in Washington state.
The criminal sexual act charge involved Lucia Evans, a marketing executive who told investigators that Weinstein forced oral sex during a casting meeting in his TriBeCa office in 2004.
Weinstein's then-lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, set the tone for his defense by saying that while he might have engaged in "bad behavior," he had not committed any crimes.
July 2, 2018: Prosecutors add charges
Manhattan prosecutors announced they were adding charges to Weinstein's indictment.
The new charges were related to accusations of forced oral sex at his TriBeCa apartment in July 2006 on an unnamed woman. She was later identified as Miriam Haley, a former production assistant on the television show Project Runway.
The new charges included predatory sexual assault, which requires prosecutors to prove that a defendant committed sexual felonies against two people and carries a maximum penalty of life in prison.
October 11, 2018: Judge throws out charge
A judge dismissed the forcible oral sex charge against Weinstein involving Evans after prosecutors acknowledged that the lead detective in the case failed to inform them about a witness who had cast doubt on Evans' account.
Three months before the indictment, the detective, Nicholas DiGaudio, had learned from the witness, a friend of Evans', that Evans had once claimed that she willingly performed oral sex on Weinstein in exchange for the promise of an acting job.
DiGaudio never told prosecutors about this contradictory account, raising questions about the viability of the broader indictment.
January 17, 2019: Weinstein changes lawyers, delaying his trial
Brafman, Weinstein's lawyer, withdrew from the case, delaying the trial schedule.
Brafman said he had uncovered several emails between Weinstein and his accusers, which suggested that aspects of their relationships were consensual.
July 11, 2019: Weinstein settles on a legal team
Weinstein's third set of lawyers, who represented him at trial, held a news conference outside state Supreme Court in Manhattan to announce their role. They had taken the case after Weinstein had hired and fired a second legal team.
The lead lawyer, Donna Rotunno of Chicago, said at the event that Weinstein had been "railroaded" by the #MeToo movement.
August 26, 2019: Sciorra is added to the case
Moving to shore up their case, prosecutors obtained a new indictment against Weinstein, allowing them to call Sciorra, the actress from The Sopranos, as a witness at the trial.
By her own account, Sciorra's alleged encounter with the producer happened nearly 30 years before — too long ago to be charged as a separate count of rape under New York state law. But the indictment permitted her to testify under the theory that her statements would support the charges of predatory sexual assault.
January 6, 2020: Weinstein is indicted in Los Angeles
In a surprising move, prosecutors in Los Angeles charged Weinstein with raping one woman and groping and masturbating in front of a second within two days in February 2013.
The California charges were filed even as the parties in New York gathered on the first day of Weinstein's trial in Manhattan to discuss jury selection and other legal issues.
January 23, 2020: Sciorra testifies
Sciorra told a hushed courtroom that Weinstein had pushed his way into her apartment in the early 1990s, after giving her a ride home from a dinner party, and forced her onto a bed.
"I was trying to get him off me," Sciorra told the jury, her voice cracking with emotion. "I was punching him, kicking him." But Weinstein held her down, she said, adding: "He got on top of me and he raped me."
January 27, 2020: Haley, a former Project Runway assistant, takes the stand
Miriam Haley testified that Weinstein had held her down on a bed and forced oral sex on her in his TriBeCa apartment in July 2006, despite her protests.
"I'm being raped," Haley recalled thinking.
She added, "I was in so much shock at the time that I just checked out." Haley said she had sex with Weinstein two weeks after the first encounter at a hotel and "didn't physically resist."
On cross-examination, she acknowledged that, after the assault, she had continued to accept gifts from him and to correspond with him, sending him friendly emails.
January 31, 2020: Mann, once an aspiring actress, testifies
Mann took the witness stand, accusing Weinstein of raping her in a midtown Manhattan hotel room after he blocked her from leaving it.
He ordered her to undress, and injected his genitals with a medication, she said, adding, "I gave up at that point."
On cross-examination, Mann acknowledged that she had consensual sex with Weinstein before and after the alleged assault, the last encounter being in 2016.
She broke down in tears when it was revealed in court that she had been sexually abused when she was younger. The moment came as she read a letter she had written to a boyfriend, in which she described Weinstein as "a pseudo father" who had given her "all the validation I ever needed."
February 18, 2020: Jury begins deliberations
The five men and seven women on the jury began deliberations after a monthlong trial that included testimony from six accusers in all, as well as from experts and other witnesses.
The jurors grappled with difficult questions. They had to decide if the relationships between the women and Weinstein were consensual and transactional, as his lawyers suggested. They also had to determine if consensual sex between Weinstein and some of the women undermined the claims that on other occasions, he assaulted them.
February 25, 2020: Weinstein found guilty
Weinstein was found guilty of two felony sex crimes. The jury found him guilty of rape and criminal sexual act but acquitted him of three other counts, including the two most serious charges against him — that he is a sexual predator
Written by: Alan Feuer
Photographs by: Jefferson Siegel and Todd Heisler
© 2020 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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