Harvey Weinstein’s Los Angeles rape trial resumes Monday with jurors picking up the deliberations they began late last week.
The disgraced Hollywood film producer faces more than 60 years behind bars in California if he’s convicted of the two rape and five sexual assault charges against him.
Weinstein previously received a 23-year sentence in New York after being found guilty of a criminal sex act and rape in a separate trial.
Deliberations started Friday in the L.A. trial, which centers on allegations made by four women. Their claims involve encounters they say occurred between 2005 and 2013. Weinstein pleaded not guilty.
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In her closing argument last week, prosecutor Marlene Martinez claimed Weinstein is a “degenerated rapist” who assaulted women under the guise of business meetings.
“For this predator, hotels were his trap,” Martinez said. “Confined within those walls victims were not able to run from his hulking mass. People were not able to hear their screams, they were not able to see them cower.”
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Weinstein’s defense team argued two of the accusers lied about their allegations, and that the other two engaged in “transactional” and “consensual” encounters with the filmmaker.
“Regret is not rape,” attorney Alan Jackson said during his closing argument.
The Queens-born Weinstein, 70, co-founded the production studio Miramax that released Oscar-winning movies such as “Shakespeare in Love,” “Good Will Hunting” and “Pulp Fiction.”
He became a focal point of the #MeToo movement after dozens of women accused him of sexual misconduct, which Weinstein denies.
Weinstein was not one of the nearly 50 people who took the stand during the L.A. trial, which began in October and included more than four weeks of testimonies.
The jury only deliberated for a few hours Friday before taking the weekend off. Deliberations at Weinstein’s New York trial lasted five days before jurors reached a verdict.
With News Wire Services
