Jurors Ask for Details of Mann ‘Spacing Out’ as Weinstein Experiences Medical Episode During Rape Trial Deliberations

Jurors who started deliberations on Wednesday over whether Harvey Weinstein is guilty of raping a former paramour sent their first note to the court requesting a readback of the cross-examination of accuser Jessica Mann, an indication that they are perhaps debating an acquittal.However, the readback of the transcript had to be postponed until Thursday after Weinstein complained of chest pains and the judge ended the day early.The 74-year-old Hollywood producer, who is wheelchair-bound, suffers from bone marrow cancer, diabetes, and numerous other illnesses. Last year, he was taken to the hospital to have fluid removed from his heart and lungs. He has been behind bars since 2020 and is currently incarcerated in the infirmary at the notorious Rikers Island jail.At about 3 p.m. local time on Wednesday, the presiding judge, Curtis Faber, told the parties that Mr. Weinstein “is having chest pains and he is not feeling well,” adding that the Department of Corrections did not want to “bring him to the courtroom.”When the jury sends a note from the deliberation room, the defendant has a right to be present in the courtroom to hear the request. Weinstein’s lead defense attorney, Marc Agnifilo, told the judge he was aware that his client, who was being held on another floor of the lower Manhattan courthouse, was feeling poorly. “He wants to be here, but he’s having chest pains,” Mr. Agnifilo said, waiving his client’s right to be present. The judge decided to postpone the readback until Thursday. But before he informed the jurors, attorneys of both parties left the courtroom so that the panel would not become suspicious about Weinstein’s absence. The judge explained that “unforeseen reasons” forced ending the day earlier than expected.About four hours into deliberations, the jury had sent a note asking to hear the cross-examination of Ms. Mann, specifically the portion in which she told defense attorney Teny Geragos that she was “spacing out.”During his summation on Tuesday, Mr. Agnifilo referenced that comment and encouraged the jury to consider Ms. Mann’s behavior on the witness stand. “Sometimes you’re a jury and you listen to facts; sometimes you can see facts for yourself,” he remarked.Mr. Agnifilo argued that the moment was significant because Ms. Mann appeared unsettled by a line of questioning about her concern that her friend would think she was “sleeping her way through Hollywood.”His colleague, Ms. Geragos, had been questioning the witness about the day of the alleged rape in 2013 at the Midtown Manhattan hotel. Ms. Mann, who was living in Los Angeles at the time, had flown to New York to spend a weekend in the city with two friends, Talia Mayer and Thomas “Tommy” Richards Lozano. She was staying at the DoubleTree Hotel and had planned to have breakfast with Weinstein there in order to introduce him to her friends, she testified.At the time, Ms. Mann was a 27-year-old aspiring actress, and Weinstein was a 60-year-old veteran Hollywood producer. The two had just met weeks before her New York trip at a party in Los Angeles, and had already shared intimate moments together.At Los Angeles, she said, she had given him a massage; another time he forced oral sex on her; and a third time she had agreed to participate in a threesome with the Italian actress, Emanuela Postacchini, which ended abruptly because Ms. Mann had a breakdown in the bathroom. On the witness stand, Ms. Mann said Weinstein arrived at the DoubleTree Hotel earlier than planned. When she came downstairs to the hotel lobby, she saw him standing at the reception desk booking a room. According to her testimony, she told him she did not want to go to a room with him.She said Weinstein became irritated, grabbed her, and pulled her aside, telling her to stop arguing with him in public. She then followed him up to the room, she testified, because she “felt that in private” she could talk to him and tell him, “I did not want to do this,” meaning engage with him sexually.Weinstein’s defense pushed back against that narrative, arguing that Ms. Mann felt uncomfortable because she feared her friends would assume she was trying to get acting work by sleeping with the producer.“Isn’t it true that it was your worst nightmare for people, including Tommy, to think that you were sleeping your way to being an actress in Hollywood?” Ms. Geragos asked.That was when Ms. Mann said she felt like she was “spacing out” and becoming dizzy in the courtroom.In his closing argument, Mr. Agnifilo drew a connection between that reaction and his broader argument that Ms. Mann was embarrassed by her relationship with Weinstein. After the alleged incident at the DoubleTree Hotel, she continued seeing Weinstein in what became an on-again, off-again relationship that lasted four years.Ms. Mann did not report the alleged rape until after sexual assault and harrassment allegations against Weinstein flooded the media in October 2017.“Her worst nightmare was that Tommy is going to think ‘I’m sleeping with Harvey Weinstein as a way of kind of sleeping my way through Hollywood,’” Mr. Agnifilo argued on Tuesday. “What does that say for the nightmare when the entire world — everyone who knows her — is going to think this? Because this has been splashed all around the news in the biggest of ways.”He went on to interpret her silence as an indication that she was ashamed of the affair rather than traumatized by rape. But on the witness stand, Ms. Mann offered another explanation, saying she felt uncomfortable being associated with Weinstein because she had “experienced some negative stuff for being associated with Harvey already.”The jury also asked to review a PowerPoint presentation the prosecution showed on Monday outlining the timeline of emails exchanged between Ms. Mann and Weinstein, along with other evidence.Court resumes on Thursday morning.

Jurors Ask for Details of Mann ‘Spacing Out’ as Weinstein Experiences Medical Episode During Rape Trial Deliberations

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