Name: Harvey Weinstein's ex-assistant speaks out after guilty verdict - BBC Newsnight
Uploaded: 2020-03-16T18:11:16.000Z
Duration: 26 min 44 s
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the world has noted how hard it's been for Harvey Weinstein to tread the sidewalks of Manhattan these past few weeks, but it's not a problem he'll have to worry about in the immediate future.

The jury in the trial of the 67 year old spent most of last week considering its verdict, but they wouldn't detain the filmmaker long today.

The man who once told showbiz reporters what to print about his movies had one last hello for them.

Within a few hours, jurors returned to say he was guilty of raping one time aspiring actress Jessica Man in New York in 2013.

He was also convicted of sexually assaulting me Me, Haley, who had been a production assistant on one of his TV projects.

Reporters hurried from the court after Weinstein was acquitted of other charges, including the two most serious counts of predatory sexual assault, which carried a possible life sentence.

Weinstein himself, however, wasn't going anywhere.

Harvey Weinstein is exactly where he should be now behind bars.

I think one of the things about today is we will not see Harvey Weinstein come down those steps in his feeble attempts of pretending to be unwell and using a walker.

Because he is now in custody, he's been remanded.

He awaits sentencing in March by Judge Burke, and today is a significant day because he's helped been held responsible for his actions.

Now that the verdict has come back guilty, guilty for Harvey Weinstein, I will say, once again, women were believed.

It's a day that Weinsteins accusers feared they'd never see.

It's been the most sensational rise and fall a mogul of the old school, a man of money, power and success brought down by his own criminal behavior and the bravery off his victims.

All at once, it seemed his image was tarnished.

The mogul reviled and mocked as a sexual predator.

Weinsteins, British wife, left him after allegations broke of hush money paid to women over his predatory behavior.

One woman who said he'd assaulted her made a secret recording in which he appeared to acknowledge a pattern in his actions.

If you wantto please just come on, I'm used to that Used to that.

Hollywood Stars air among scores of women who have accused Weinstein.

The producer acknowledged he'd caused a lot of pain.

He was sacked by the board of his company.

Despite the mounting number of allegations against him, prosecutors charged him with offenses against only two women when he appeared in court.

As his trial finally opened in New York last month, the once swaggering Hollywood tycoon cutter much diminished figure.

And not by coincidence, some observers suggested below, the jury was directly concerned with what had happened to two of Weinsteins victims.

They also heard details of four other alleged cases too old to prosecute under New York law but suggesting a consistent pattern, prosecutors argued.

In a rare act of self effacement, the filmmaker declined to give evidence in his own defense, leaving it to his lawyers to attack the credibility of his accusers.

That seems to have been partially successful.

From their point of view, though, they're planning an appeal.

Maybe the cards were so so stacked against Mr Weinstein before this even started, I don't know.

What did he say to you after I'm innocent?

Manhattan's district attorney saw it differently.

Wednesday is a vicious serial sexual predator who used his power to threaten rape, assault, trick, humiliate and silences victims.

He has been found guilty of criminal sexual act in the first degree and will face on that count a state prison sentence off no less than five years and up 25 years.

Weinstein awaits sentencing next month with the prospect of further proceedings in California on charges of sexual assault.

That was Steven Smith here in the studio, the Labour MP and author of Every Woman just Phillips on Zelda Perkins, Harvey Weinstein's former assistant, who confronted Weinstein about the attempted rape of her colleague more than two decades ago and was silence by his lawyers.

Zelda imagine the hardest thing I could ask you right now is how you yourself a feeling.

So let me instead ask you what you think will be going through his mind.

Do you think he will register a sense of guilt at this moment?

It's a hard question because I'm not a psychopath, so I don't know really what's going on in his mind.

But I would imagine that he's in total denial that this is happening on disbelief because his belief in his innocence is enormous.

That's how he's always been able to operate because he never believed that he's doing anything wrong.

I don't know if the amount of power that has been lost to him over the last couple of years will have had any deep effect.

But I imagine he will be going back regrouping, imagining his next plan of battle.

Because I remember you telling me that when you confronted him on a terrace following the attempted rape of your colleague, he swore he hadn't done it on his family's life.

Did he convince himself at any point, the sex was consensual?

Do you remember how he justified it to you, or was it just obliviousness?

I don't think he cared whether it was consensual or not.

I don't think he thought about it like that.

And his focus was always to get submission.

No, to him was not a word that he understood, and he wouldn't have seen it as somebody's desire to say no.

He would have just seen it as an obstacle to remove.

Just Does this look like justice being served tonight?

It does look like justice, and it feels like Justice and Furs Elder.

And for lots of the women who have been involved, I still think that there is a feeling that something's gonna come up where he's gonna get away with it somehow.

Like somehow, because that is the story of Harvey Weinstein that is, the story of lots and lots of very powerful men in the whole me to movement or on.

What we said in the past couple of years is that there is an industry in place to protect these people, and so what?

And earlier I was shaking when I had the verdict.

I still somehow think they'll have some sort of rub it over half.

We can say that Harvey Weinstein is a rapist.

You know that industry well, You were silenced with a non disclosure agreement which covered up any attempts to bring him to justice.

Any criminal wrongdoing on that industry still there?

Harvey might go down for five years, 15 years, 20 years, we don't know yet, but about industry is still alive and kicking on DDE.

This is not an end to any sort of problem.

So what has changed if the law hasn't actually changed?

Don't don't put the whole me to trial into the courtroom, but it has come in.

I think that it would be impossible for any juror or for any anybody to ignore the number.

The sheer volume of women coming forward about this specific man about Harvey Weinstein.

However, I do think that there has been a change now.

No law has changed in the state of New York to make this happen.

No law has changed here in response to it.

Although every single politician would sit in front of you and say, no, things are changing.

But actually legislatively, nothing has changed on Dwyer.

I find it very hard to believe that the same convictions would be felt in courts across the land that I hear rape cases today.

But the sheer volume of people in this case, I think, would always have been difficult to cut to get over.

But know that I think that in one part of color for in California they have legislated to end the use of non disclosure agreements in sexual harassment.

But that's the only change we've actually seen in the wake of this.

Really disappointed that the two even graver charges the counts that he got off on means that he won't automatically get a life sentence.

Look, you know, I I want to see Harvey Weinstein behind bars.

I don't understand how he could be found guilty of some and not others, but I wasn't in that courtroom.

I do think that we should We should celebrate the charges that have been laid against him and hope that he serves a decent time in prison.

Do you think that other women, other people will be emboldened to come forward?

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Harvey Weinstein's ex-assistant speaks out after guilty verdict - BBC Newsnight

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