In 2020, the former film mogul was convicted of rape and sexual assault against two women and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Jury selection for different allegations begins on Monday in Los Angeles, where Weinstein will stand trial on four counts of rape and seven other sexual assault counts involving five women, according to reports.
Four of the eleven alleged crimes took place during the 2013 Oscars week, according to accusers, the same year that Jennifer Lawrence won the Academy Award for best actress for her performance in The Weinstein Company's Silver Linings Playbook. Like most of the reported sexual crimes, these incidents are alleged to have taken place at hotels in Los Angeles and in Beverly Hills under the false pretense of “business meetings”.
“He was a creature of New York, but he was also a creature of Los Angeles,” said Kim Masters, editor for The Hollywood Reporter. “He had this huge Golden Globes party that was always well beyond capacity when he was in his heyday. He was the King of Hollywood in New York and LA.”
The “King of Hollywood” will suffer through a more discreet trial than the one in Manhattan, away from eager camera flashes and curious reporters, as he’ll be shuffled to and from the courtroom directly from jail, where he’s serving 23 years for the third-degree rape of an aspiring actress, and a criminal sex act against a former production assistant.
Weinstein’s lawyers, new-to-him Alan Jackson and Mark Werksman, have expressed worries that the release of She Said, a film that fictionalizes the work of two New York Times reporters and their stories on Weinstein–set to be released mid-way through the trial, on Nov. 18–may influence the trial.
“Mr. Weinstein’s notoriety and his place in our culture at the center of the firestorm which is the #MeToo movement is real, and we’re trying to do everything we can to avoid having a trial when there will be a swirl of adverse publicity toward him,” Werksman said at a pretrial hearing.
The judge presiding over the trial denied the lawyer’s motion to delay the proceedings due to the film's release.
LA County prosecutors initially charged Weinstein in January 2020 with forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by use of force involving one woman on Feb. 18, 2013, and sexual battery by restraint involving another woman a day later.
On Monday, October 10, prospective jurors will be summoned to the Los Angeles Superior Court to fill out questionnaires assessing their familiarity with the case and ability to serve with impartiality.
The trial is expected to take about eight weeks.