9 jurors had been picked Wednesday on the second day of jury choice in Harvey Weinstein’s #MeToo rape retrial.
On the identical time, lawyer for the disgraced Hollywood bigwig requested a choose to permit him to spend his nights at a New York Metropolis hospital as a substitute of jail at some point of the trial, citing his many well being points together with most cancers and issues strolling that require using a wheelchair to get out and in of courtroom.
The jurors — 5 ladies and 4 males — had been picked from a gaggle of 25 potential jurors who spent the previous two days answering questions from prosecutors and Weinstein’s legal professionals to gauge their means to be neutral. They’re the primary jurors picked after none had been chosen on Tuesday.
Jury choice will resume Thursday with a contemporary group of about 80 potential jurors to start the screening course of anew. Choose Curtis Farber has mentioned a complete of 12 jurors and 6 alternates will likely be picked.
The prosecution and protection every used seven of their allotted 15 peremptory challenges to reject potential jurors on Wednesday, leaving eight per aspect.
Two different candidates had been faraway from consideration by the choose. One had expressed dismay concerning the justice system and complained that rich individuals keep away from culpability for wrongdoing. One other initially indicated he could possibly be honest however then returned to the courtroom and mentioned he didn’t suppose he might.
“Defense counsel asked my reaction to the defendant’s name and the first word that came in my head was ‘pig,’” mentioned the person, who works as an funding banker. “And I apologize, but I feel a great sense of responsibility as a citizen and I take this stuff seriously.”
Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not responsible and denies raping or sexually assaulting anybody.
He leaned again in his wheelchair, peering at potential jurors as they answered questions that touched on every thing from their impressions of #MeToo — a motion spawned by scores of allegations in 2017 in opposition to the ex-studio boss — to what they love to do of their spare time.
An accounting guide rejected by the prosecution mentioned he had “negative feelings” about the movement because his high school classmates had been wrongly accused of sexual assault. A lawyer who works in cryptocurrency compliance countered that “not enough has been done” because of #MeToo. She was rejected by Weinstein’s aspect.
In looking for to relocate Weinstein for the trial, his legal professionals argued that his keep on the metropolis’s infamous Rikers Island jail complicated is exacerbating his well being points and that he’d be higher off within the jail ward at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. Weinstein has been forwards and backwards quite a few instances to Bellevue in latest months for therapy of assorted maladies.
The Oscar-winning producer has quite a few well being circumstances, together with power myeloid leukemia, coronary heart points, diabetes, sleep apnea and sciatica. A latest tongue an infection was misdiagnosed at Rikers, requiring that Weinstein be hospitalized, and he has gained practically 20 kilos previously month, his lawyer Imran Ansari mentioned.
Weinstein’s legal professionals filed a authorized declare in opposition to the town in November, alleging he was receiving substandard medical therapy in unhygienic circumstances at Rikers. The declare, which seeks $5 million in damages, argues that Weinstein has been returned to Rikers every time earlier than absolutely recovering on the hospital.
“Because of this mistreatment, he has been worn down considerably health wise, and now faces the stress of trial in this condition, which may very well lead to serious health complications, even death,” Ansari mentioned Wednesday in a press release.
Rikers has confronted rising scrutiny for its mistreatment of detainees and harmful circumstances. Final yr, a choose cleared the way in which for a potential federal takeover, discovering inmates had been in “unconstitutional danger.”
Farber has but to rule on the switch request, and the problem wasn’t mentioned in courtroom Wednesday.
Weinstein is being tried once more after New York’s highest courtroom final yr overturned his 2020 conviction and 23-year jail sentence, discovering his trial had been tainted by improper rulings and prejudicial testimony.
He’s being retried on two expenses. He’s accused of raping an aspiring actor in a Manhattan lodge room in 2013 and a legal intercourse act by forcing oral intercourse on a film and TV manufacturing assistant in 2006.
He’s additionally charged with one other depend of legal intercourse act based mostly on an allegation from a girl who was not part of the unique trial. That lady, who has requested to not be named publicly, alleges that Weinstein compelled oral intercourse on her at a Manhattan lodge.
