Weinstein Also Having a Difficult Week

The prosecution finished up today with its last "pattern" witness, who testified to Weinstein molesting her in a bathroom, albeit with some inconsistencies compared to prior versions she has told. Overall, that has been every complaining witness in the trial (i.e., both the ones whose accusations are the basis of the "rape" charges and the ones who are only testifying to show "pattern"). However, the prosecution opened with a pseudo-science presentation by an alleged "expert" who explained why real rape victims can be expected to tell multiple, inconsistent stories.

Most trying for Weinstein this week was the publication of his nude pictures to the jury, ostensibly to corroborate witness accounts that he is is hairy, with fat rolls and blackheads, lacks testicles and has a badly scarred or malformed penis. Today's prosecution witness termed Weinstein's penis "disgusting," and said that its appearance was as though it had been severed and sewed back on. Witnesses have also testified that Weinstein has a foul, personal odor.

On Court TV and  all over the Internet, pundits are dancing around this, but what it really represents is quite simple. This is exactly the same technique that would be universally condemned as completely horrific against any defendant but the likes of Weinstein. The prosecutors' bullshit aside, the purpose is to show that Weinstein is as hideous and sexually undesirable as a rock troll, and that therefore, none of the complaining witnesses (who are all young, attractive women with modeling or acting experience) would have had consensual sex with him. This, even though some of them have actually admitted under oath that, on occasion, they did have consensual sex with him.

I can't tell you how many times some Internet shrew or shrews has bitched at me for evaluating sexual assault or harassment allegations on exactly this basis (which, in my opinion, juries also commonly do). If the complaining witness is, for example, an Ellen Pao type, or a time zone woman, and the defendant is not obviously such a loser as to have no chance at a normal dating relationship, the claim is unlikely to be accepted. Here, the prosecutors want to make sure the jury understands that Weinstein is so hairy, fat, ugly, foul-smelling and deformed that the women can only have been somehow coerced to the extent their natural revulsion was overcome (because they would never have just played him for money or career opps).

For those who have not been following the telecast coverage, one of the collateral sideshows is that one of the prosecutors, Meghan Hast, looks mightily like a man trying to look like a woman. Just another New York sex trial circus in all its glory.

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2020/02/05/Harvey-Weinstein-accuser-testifies-trapped-hotel-bathroom-rape-trial/stories/202002050188