Harvey Weinstein could face criminal charges over accusations made by at least one of the women who accused the disgraced mogul of rape in a New Yorker story published on Tuesday, a legal expert told TheWrap. But it would be an uphill climb. According to Connecticut criminal…
Harvey Weinstein could face criminal charges over accusations made by at least one of the women who accused the disgraced mogul of rape in a New Yorker story published on Tuesday, a legal expert told TheWrap. But it would be an uphill climb.
According to Connecticut criminal-defense attorney Norman Pattis, the conduct that former aspiring actress Lucia Evans described — being forced to perform oral sex on Weinstein in a 2004 meeting at Miramax’s Manhattan headquarters — would constitute either rape or aggravated rape, depending on the circumstances.
That’s a felony with no statute of limitations in the eyes of New York law, he added.
But any potential prosecution could be hampered by circumstances such as the passage of time, the lack of physical evidence and witnesses, he said.
“Arguably, the case can be brought,” Pattis said. “I say arguably because she’s got, obviously, a lot of explaining to do about why there was a 15-year interval between the time of the alleged conduct and now… she’s gonna have some issues on her hands. Delayed disclosure is always a fundamental issue in sex cases.”
Evans said that the alleged incident took place in the summer before her senior year in college, presumably putting her in her early 20s at the time.
“That’s going to be an adult under anybody’s reading of the law, that she’s not going to be a child. Unless she’s got some sort of extraordinary psychiatric or emotional difficulties, the common-sense question arises,” Pattis said.
“If it was rape [then], why wait until he’s in the newspaper to jump on this? I’m not sure she can give a credible explanation,” he said. “Has she retained physical evidence all these years? It’s easy to cry rape against Weinstein right now — it’s sort of like crying ‘fries’ in McDonald’s.”
While prosecutors could still bring a case without DNA evidence — a distinct possibility in this case, given the passage of time — it would likely be an impediment to proving the case, Pattis said.
“DNA is important everywhere right now; lawyers call it the ‘CSI’ effect — it’s considered to be the gold standard of circumstantial evidence,” Pattis said. “The absence of it will raise questions in some people’s minds.”
The growing number of women who’ve come forward to accuse Weinstein of sexual misconduct has generated a pile of headlines, but the number of accusers could prove problematic in the legal arena, Pattis also cautioned.
“The problem with these high-profile-defendant rape cases is that as the number of complainants multiplies, the likelihood of a fair trial decreases and at some point reaches a vanishing point,” Pattis said.
A representative for Weinstein denied the allegations in the New Yorker article in a statement to the publication, saying, “Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances.”
In the New Yorker piece, Farrow writes that three women “told me that Weinstein raped them.”
A second woman, actress-director Asia Argento, claimed that Weinstein sexually assaulted her after inviting her to a party at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc outside Cannes, France in 1997.
But bringing a case in France could be difficult given the country’s statute of limitations on sexual assault offenses, which hampered the attempted prosecution of former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in 2011.
The story does not name the third rape accuser or provide details of her allegations.
In the New Yorker piece, Evans, who at the time went by Lucia Stoller, recalled meeting Weinstein at the New York City club Cipriani Upstairs and then followed up with a meeting at his Miramax office.
Weinstein “immediately was simultaneously flattering me and demeaning me and making me feel bad about myself,” Evans said, telling her that she would “be great in ‘Project Runway’” — a fashion reality TV show the company produced — and telling her about a horror movie script and a teen romance script that he said one of his associates would discuss with her.
“At that point, after that, is when he assaulted me,” Evans told the New Yorker. “He forced me to perform oral sex on him.”
Read original story Harvey Weinstein Could Face Criminal Charges Over 2004 Rape Claim, Legal Expert Says At TheWrap
