NEW YORK: Jurors in Harvey Weinstein’s sex crimes retrial appeared to be focusing on one of his three accusers as deliberations stretched into a fourth day Tuesday, with no further sign of interpersonal tensions that flared earlier.
The jury had requested to start off Tuesday with electronic copies of emails and other evidence pertaining to Jessica Mann — the accuser with arguably the most complex history with Weinstein.
Jurors deliberated through the day, winding up with a request to rehear on Wednesday a key part of Mann’s testimony. Jurors also indicated they want on Wednesday to keep reviewing the emails and some medical records concerning her reaction to news accounts of other women’s allegations against him.
During days of testimony, Mann said the Oscar-winning movie producer raped her in 2013 amid a consensual relationship that continued for years afterward. Weinstein’s lawyers emphasized that she kept seeing him, accepting invitations and sending warm messages to him. Mann said she “compartmentalized” the pain he caused her.
Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not guilty to all the charges in the case. In addition to the rape charge, he’s accused of sexually assaulting two other women, Mimi Haley and Kaja Sokola.
Weinstein didn’t testify during the current trial, but maintained through his attorneys that he had completely consensual encounters with his accusers, who wanted his help building show business careers.
Weinstein was one of the movie industry’s most powerful figures until a series of sexual misconduct allegations against him became public in 2017, fueling the #MeToo movement and eventually leading to criminal charges.
The jury is made up of seven women and five men. Their closed-door discussions began Thursday and apparently have been fractious at times.
One juror asked Friday to be excused because he felt one member of the group was being treated unfairly. Then on Monday, the foreperson complained to the judge, prosecutors and defense lawyers that some jurors were “pushing” others to change their minds, talking about Weinstein’s past and going beyond the charges.
The foreperson didn’t specify what was said. Trial evidence has included some testimony about allegations outside the scope of the current charges, such as mentions of the groundswell of claims against the ex-studio boss in 2017.
Yet another juror soon asked to speak to the court, where she opined that things were “going well.” By the end of Monday, the jury as a whole said in a note that it was “making good progress.”
There was progress Tuesday on at least one front: Jurors ultimately were given coffee, as requested, Judge Curtis Farber said. He hadn’t initially thought the state court system could provide it.
Weinstein originally was convicted in New York in 2020 of raping Mann and forcing oral sex on Haley. Sokola’s allegation was added last year, after New York state’s highest court overturned the 2020 conviction and sent the case back for retrial.
Meanwhile, Weinstein is appealing a 2022 rape conviction in Los Angeles.
The Associated Press generally does not identify people without their permission if they say they have been sexually assaulted. Sokola, Mann and Haley have agreed to be named.
Weinstein jury pores over accuser’s emails during deliberations
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Weinstein jury pores over accuser’s emails during deliberations
- Jurors deliberated through the day, winding up with a request to rehear on Wednesday a key part of Mann’s testimony
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
