Harvey Weinstein Deliberations Day 3: No Verdict Yet As Jury Reviews Evidence In Annabella Sciorra-Miriam Haley Cases
Jurors in the Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct trial continued deliberations for the third day, their Thursday morning apparently filled with reviewing emails and testimony involving accusers Annabella Sciora and Miriam “Mimi” Haley.
The emails were among the jury requests made yesterday afternoon, along with the January 24 testimony of Sciorra’s friend, actress Rosie Perez. Court reporters read the Perez testimony to the jury and spectators late Wednesday afternoon, with New York Supreme Court Judge James Burke instructing attorneys on both sides to submit the requested emails for jury review Thursday morning.
As of the daily lunch break today, the jury had sent Burke no additional requests or submitted any additional questions.
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On Tuesday and Wednesday – the first two days of deliberations – the jury requested emails and testimony regarding accusers Sciorra and Miriam Haley, possibly suggesting jurors were deliberating the five criminal counts against Weinstein in the order listed on the verdict sheet, beginning with one of two predatory sexual assault charges that carry the heaviest possible sentence: life in prison.
The first count against Weinstein is for predatory sexual assault against Haley and Sciorra – the jury must unanimously agree that Weinstein assaulted both women. Haley, a former Project Runway production assistant, alleges that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in a TriBeCa Grand Hotel room on a July night in 2006. (The second count is criminal sexual assault in the first degree, based on Haley’s allegation.)
Sciorra previously testified that she was raped by Weinstein in her Gramercy Park apartment during the winter of 1993-1994. The statute of limitations has expired for Sciorra’s rape claim, but under a recent New York law her testimony can be used in conjunction with other accusers to establish predatory behavior.
In addition to re-hearing the Perez testimony – including the actress’ claim (disputed by the defense) that Sciorra told her of the rape back in the early 1990s – the jury requested all Sciorra-related emails, including those between Weinstein and his private investigators Black Cube and Guidepost Solutions. The Miramax co-creator hired the companies in 2017 to investigate Sciorra and other women he suspected might be co-operating with Ronan Farrow for what turned out to be the journalist’s blockbuster Weinstein exposé in The New Yorker.
In count three, Weinstein has been charged with predatory sexual assault against Sciorra and accuser Jessica Mann, a former model, actress and hairstylist who says she was raped in 2013. Counts four and five against Weinstein are rape in the first and third degrees, involving only Mann.
By mid-day Thursday, the jury had not formally requested to hear or read any testimony or evidence specifically regarding Mann, a possible – though not certain – indication that deliberations had not yet reached the counts involving her.
Deliberations will continue this afternoon.
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