Five years after the #MeToo campaign, three questions have emerged about the Harvey Weinstein trial starting in Los Angeles

This is the second trial of the former seventh art tycoon. Fallen movie producer Harvey Weinstein whose actions with women sparked the #MeToo movement in October 2017, He appears as of Monday, October 10, in court in Los Angeles (California), to answer new charges of sexual assault. The hearing will begin with the selection of the jurors.

What are the challenges of this new appointment with justice scheduled to last two months? Franceinfo answers three questions about the trial.

Who are the accused?

Harvey Weinstein, 70, is being sued by five women, who accused him of sexual assault and rape in hotels in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills during meetings between 2004 and 2013. One of them is an Italian model, who claims she was raped at the Beverly Hills Hotel in February 2013. Lauren YoungAn aspiring actress accuses him of sexually assaulting her in another hotel bathroom. The latter is the only accused who was not unknown in this case. She had previously testified in the New York trial.

As Variety explains, four other women will testify about similar assaults. It suffices to allow the claimant to put forward a working method. According to the American magazine, one of the prosecution’s witnesses is Ambra Batilana Gutierrez, the Italian model and actress who first reported Weinstein to the New York Police Department in March 2015. The Manhattan Attorney General’s Office has chosen not to prosecute Harvey Weinstein over these facts, sparking much criticism. The Los Angeles trial will be his first chance to testify in public.

As in New York, Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty and claims that these women were in agreement.

What punishment does he bear?

Harvey Weinstein faces 11 counts of rape and sexual assault. If convicted, the former billionaire faces up to 140 years in prison. The sentence will be in addition to the 23 years in prison issued in March 2020 in New York. His lawyers had requested, in vain, that the trial in Los Angeles be postponed, due to the film’s release in November. She said , Adaptation of Journalists’ Book The New York Times , Judy Kantor and Megan Twohy, Who revealed the whole case five years ago. According to the defense, media coverage about this work can do “injury” to the accused.

Harvey Weinstein was transferred in July 2021 from Wende Jail in upstate New York to the Twin Towers prison in Los Angeles County. At this summer’s impeachment hearing, the ruling Hollywood man appeared in a wheelchair, looking sloppy, wearing a brown jumpsuit and wearing a mask under his nose. In September, he asked the judge to allow him to see a private dentist to avoid having his rotten teeth pulled out by prison doctors and to be present at his trial. “I feel pain every day. I have tooth decay and I can’t eat because I’m losing teeth”said the former film producer, according to New York Post.

What other actions are underway?

The state Supreme Court finally ruled to accept Harvey Weinstein’s appeal in the New York trial in late August, after it was first rejected by a lower appeals court. “Legal issues are at stake and must be heard by the Court of Appeal”New York Justice ruled. Lawyers for the former billionaire argued that the jurors in the trial in New York were overwhelmed “bad evidence” And that the juror who wrote a book about it “predatory men” It had to be disposed of. “If this first experience is cancelled, it won’t be a good sign.”With France Info, one of his accusers, actress Caitlin Dolany, fears, recalling that Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction Canceled in July 2021 due to procedural flaws.

Other lawsuits also target Harvey Weinstein abroad. Indicted in the UK On two sexual assaults dating back to the summer of 1996. According to guardianThe complainant is a woman, now 50 years old. It is not known whether the seventy-year-old will be extradited and tried by a British criminal court, the newspaper specifies.