Are ya laughing now, Harvey? Accused mass rapist Harvey Weinstein let out a big ol’ belly laugh during his defense attorney’s closing argument at his rape trial in Los Angeles earlier this month, apparently because watching one of the plaintiffs be ridiculed was just too delightful to pretend otherwise.
I doubt that the former king of Hollywood was feeling quite so jolly on Monday evening, since after nine days of deliberations, the jury did find him guilty of rape. But it also found him not guilty of violating a second accuser, and couldn’t decide on two others, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, whose testimony about what he did to her during what was supposed to be a business meeting could not have been more raw.
What did she ever stand to gain from testifying? In one sense, exactly what she did get out of it, which was nothing. Well, except being called a bimbo and a liar who’d slept with Weinstein willingly — transactionally, Weinstein’s lawyers kept saying, during the two wrenching days she spent sobbing on the witness stand. (Asked to point out her attacker in court, she burst into tears: “He’s wearing a suit and a blue tie and he’s staring at me.” Sometimes, she cried so hard that she was difficult to understand, calling out, “Oh God!” and “I just wanted to get the f--- out of there.”)
