Weinstein Was Immoral, Not Criminal, Lawyer Argues at Retrial

Harvey Weinstein had “mutually beneficial relationships” with the women accusing him of sexual assault, his attorney argued in opening statements Wednesday at the disgraced movie producer’s retrial.

“The casting couch was not a crime scene,” Arthur Aidala, Weinstein’s attorney, said . “Was it immoral? One hundred percent,” Aidala said. But there’s room “between immorality and illegality,” the attorney said.

The women “wanted to please him” to get ahead in the industry, but their relationships were consensual, Aidala said.

Weinstein is being tried for sex crimes in a New York court after the state’s highest court overturned his earlier conviction and 23-year sentence. The 2020 guilty verdict was a victory for the #MeToo movement, and activists are eyeing the retrial partly as an indicator of how much the climate has changed.

Aidala’s arguments followed an opening from Manhattan assistant district attorney Shannon Lucey, who painted a picture of Weinstein leveraging his power in Hollywood to coerce and silence three women he sexually assaulted.

Two of the alleged victims—Jessica Mann and Miriam Haley—testified at the first trial. Jurors also heard Tuesday that Weinstein sexually assaulted former model Kaja Sokola. Sokola didn’t testify at the first trial.

Mann was an aspiring actress. Haley was a former production assistant on Weinstein’s “Project Runway.”

The women spoke out after reading news reports in 2017 that showed them “they weren’t alone and it was safe to be silent no more,” the prosecutor said. Lucey said Weinstein used “dream opportunities” in the industry “as weapons.”

“He absolutely refused to be told no,” she said. “When he wanted something he took it,” including sex, Lucey said.

Legal Rematch

Prosecutors in the Manhattan state court case are facing limits to the evidence they can enter. The New York Court of Appeals’ 4-3 decision overturning the earlier conviction said the trial judge unlawfully allowed women who weren’t part of the charges against Weinstein to testify for the prosecution.

Now, the three women alleging sexual abuse by Weinstein are expected to take the stand—both the two who testified in the first trial, and the new accuser. Unlike the first case, there won’t be additional witnesses claiming abuse that wasn’t charged.

Weinstein has also appealed a conviction and 16-year sentence in California.

‘Tough Case’

Opening statements Wednesday followed a five-day jury selection process where prospective jurors sounded off on #MeToo. Attorneys whittled the panel down to seven women and five men.

While demonstrators and actresses showed up to protest Weinstein during his first trial, there wasn’t the same fervor at the courthouse Wednesday.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat who’s up for reelection this year, was in the courtroom. So was attorney Gloria Allred, who has represented alleged Weinstein victims.

“It will be a tough case,” former Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, who oversaw the first trial, said in an interview with Bloomberg Law ahead of the retrial. “Tougher now perhaps because they’ve lost a lot of witnesses.”

But, Vance added, after trying the case once “both sides will be a little better prepared.”

The case is People v. Weinstein, N.Y. Sup. Ct., 4/23/25