Was Harvey Weinstein really guilty? First (even though this will probably be counterproductive to the whole purpose of this thread) I want to say that, I have the feeling that Weinstein is probably guilty. Many of you will probably want to stop reading right there. Why care about someone who got sent to prison if they are probably guilty? The issue is the principle of the thing. Weinstein may "probably" be guilty, but a lot of that comes from more of a feeling rather than actual logic and certainty. If this could happen to Weinstein, it could conceivably also happen to other men who are were not actually guilty. And there does exist a chance Weinstein might not be guilty. So I think it's important we look at this story and analyze it for fairness, even if we may have the feeling that Weinstein probably got what he deserved. The news media reported this story but not once even suggested or asked the question whether his conviction and punishment were really fair. All the news coverage was phrased with the assumption that Weinstein was guilty of having raped women. In 2022, Ms Siebel Newsom gave testimony that she had been raped by Weinstein in a hotel room in 2005. Ms Siebel Newsom (married in 2008 ) is now the wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom, which in my view lends her claims credibility. However, the jury in the trial was unable to reach a consensus on whether Weinstein was guilty of raping Ms Newsom, and so a mistrial was declared for this specific criminal charge. Another woman, named Lauren Young, also testified that she was raped by Weinstein in 2013. The jury was also unable to reach a verdict on the charges involving her. Another woman, known only as "Jane Doe 3", was massage therapist and testified that he been raped by Weinstein in 2010. The jury voted "not guilty" for that alleged rape involving her. Another woman, known as "Jane Doe 1", was a Russian-born model, and testified that she had been raped by Weinstein in February 2013. So this is a rape that happened 9 years ago and she waited all this time to report it. There were a total of 87 women who came forward to accuse Weinstein of individually raping them, in the past. Eighty-seven. Now, the first thought that most people have when they see that is, 87 women accusing a man of rape, he definitely has to be a rapist. Sure, we might not know for certain if each individual woman is telling the truth, but certainly at least many of those women must be telling the truth. But that right there is where I think most people fall into making an error in logic. Consider, there are 87 women each accusing this man of rape, all of the alleged rapes happened many years ago. Let's assume all these women are telling the truth. It defies belief that 87 women could have been raped and not one of them came forward to report it earlier, shortly after the rape happened. That feels like a near statistical improbability to me. Let's take a look at the start of the timeline of allegations against Weinstein. On October 5, 2017, The New York Times published a story detailing decades of allegations of sexual harassment (not rape) against Harvey Weinstein. Actresses Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd were among the women who came forward. The accusations were that he forced women to massage him and watch him naked, and also that he promised to help advance their careers in return for sexual favors. Those allegations are plausible, but it is not rape. Weinstein issued a public apology, saying that he "has caused a lot of pain". But he disputed allegations that he harassed female employees over nearly three decades. But that's the time point where the water started frothing with piranhas. The story was widely publicized in the media, across the nation. And that's when scores of women started coming forward to accuse him. What could be the motivation for all these women to lie? Well first, you kind of have to understand this as a little bit like a phenomena of mass hysteria. If you have millions of women seeing a story, a very tiny fraction of women reacting in a certain way to that can still end up being a sizeable number. Weinstein was a rich man. At one time his net worth as estimated to be as much as $300 million. In both New York and California (where most of the sexual assaults are alleged to have occurred) there has developed a court precedent of suing men for large amounts of money over allegations of sexual assault or sexual harassment. And those awards of money can be ridiculously huge if the individual or company being sued has large amounts of money. In short, if these women wanted to convincingly be able to sue the man for money, they would need to testify against him, preferably resulting in his conviction, in criminal court first. There was a clear and big financial incentive for these women to accuse Weinstein. On October 10, 2017, two more actresses came forward and claimed that Weinstein sexually assaulted them, Actress Asia Argento and Lucia Stoller. On October 12, Rose McGowan wrote on Twitter that Weinstein raped her. On October 15, Lysette Anthony, a British actress, said that Weinstein raped her at her London home in the late 1980s. Four more unidentified British women made reports to police, saying that they were raped by Weinstein in 1992, 2010, 2011 and 2015. Another woman in California went to police and told them she was sexually assaulted by Weinstein in 2013. These accusations were immediately published in the media. On October 25, Mimi Haleyi, a former production worker, alleged that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in 2006, constituting sexual assault. Actress Dominique Huett also alleged that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her without her consent, and filed a negligence lawsuit against Weinstein's company, trying to get money. On October 26, Natassia Malthe, a Norwegian actress, accused Weinstein of raping her in a London hotel in 2008. On October 27, actress Annabella Sciorra accused Weinstein of forcing himself into her apartment and raping her in the early 1990s. Actress Daryl Hannah also alleged that Weinstein tried to force himself into her hotel room and repeatedly sexually harassed her. On October 28, actress Rose McGowan claimed she turned down a $1 million settlement offer from Harvey Weinstein in exchange for her silence. On November 1, a Canadian actress, only identified as "Jane Doe", sued Weinstein for two alleged sexual assaults in 2000 in Toronto. The anonymous actress, sought a total of $14 million Canadian dollars. On November 2, actress Paz de la Huerta spoke in an interview with Vanity Fair and said Weinstein raped her twice in New York in 2010. The next day New York police announced they had "an actual case" against Weinstein from an unidentified women, who the media believed was probably Paz de la Huerta. On November 28, it became known that the first woman in the U.K. was trying to sue Weinstein for money, alleging a series of sexual assaults. On December 1, actress Kadian Noble made the accusation that Weinstein lured her into a hotel room in France and sexually assaulted her in 2014. She filed a lawsuit against Weinstein's company, trying to get money. (The lawsuit was filed in New York, so she was seeking to get the state of New York to order Weinstein's company, and Weinstein's brother, to pay her money for a sexual assault Weinstein had allegedly committed in France) (I'm not going to be able to cover all the other individual rape accusations that happened after that time point against Weinstein because the list is so long) In addition there were multiple other women who came forward, claiming that Weinstein did sexually inappropriate things, or made very inappropriate sexual advances towards them. These claims are more believable, but it should be emphasized that having a pattern of doing sexually inappropriate things does not mean that Weinstein raped the other women. The courts seemed to conflate the two together, but I think it's important that a distinction be drawn between the two. Weinstein may have been a pervert who had difficulty controlling his sexual impulses and pushed himself onto and pressured women to sleep with him. But that does not mean he is a rapist, and that does not mean the rape accusations women made against him are true. All of this was being constantly published in the media, and the women accusing him of rape knew what the allegations of sexual misconduct against him were. These women knew that Weinstein would have been a very easy target. If a man is already being accused of all sorts of awful sexual misconduct, it's very easy to also accuse that man of rape and be believed. There is yet another motivation many of the women may have had to falsely accuse Weinstein of rape. That is that the "MeToo" social movement had gained prominence that year. There was a popular trend of victims of sexual harassment and assault to share their stories on the big social sites on the internet (Facebook, Twitter). There was a push to change society so that women would be believed, when they made accusations of sexual misconduct against men. Some women may have felt that women were not being believed, and perpetrators were not being punished. So what better way to help a woman be believed than another woman also making an accusation against that same man being accused? If a man is being accused by one woman of raping her, maybe no one will believe her. But if two women are accusing him of rape, the women have to be believed. Women working together for "social justice", for a "virtuous cause". I've observed this same sort of phenomena in other cases where men get wrongfully convicted. For some reason people believe that an individual is guilty of some terrible crime but they know the evidence is not strong enough to prove it. So one person, completely believing that suspect is guilty, lies or plants evidence to try to help make sure that suspect is punished. In their mind they think they are doing the right thing. Then along comes another person, not knowing what the first person did, and they see the evidence. It really makes it look like that person is guilty. So they lie too, trying to get the suspect sent to prison. It's a "snowball" effect. People lie because they think it will result in the right outcome. But each of those people are not aware that previous people before them also lied. That second person probably would have never lied if it was not for the first person who lied, making the suspect look more guilty. The Weinstein case could likely have been a corollary of that. It was a snowball effect. Some women made allegations (probably true) of awful sexual misconduct. One woman comes along and accuses Weinstein of rape, and then the floodgates opened. At that point this man appears to be a rapist, so other women start coming forward to also accuse him of rape, trying to help the first woman be believed, while also seeking to get a nice chunk of money for themselves. And then it snowballs. If these women totally believed Weinstein had a long history of sexual misconduct and was a rapist, assaulting many women, then why not falsely accuse him? If you think he deserves to go to prison for life anyway, you're not going to be concerned what happens to him, as a result of your false accusations. And there's plenty of money to be had. Why not grab some of it for yourself? The chances that the authorities are ever going to figure and prove that you are lying are slim, it almost never happens. That's all the more the case when the rape is alleged to have happened 7 years ago. The real problem here, in my opinion, is that courts and juries are willing to award huge amounts of money based on only the woman's accusations, no other evidence. I have to believe that the majority of these women accusing Weinstein of raping them were lying. (Even if Weinstein was a rapist) And that then begs the question, if most of the women who were accusing him were lying, couldn't it easily be possible that all of the women who were accusing him of raping them were lying? What if Weinstein was just guilty of all sorts of terrible sexual misconduct and sexual harassment, but not anything that actually went as far as rape? Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison in New York, convicted of rape and two sexual assault charges involving only one victim, an accuser, her known as "Jane Doe 1", her identity kept anonymous from the public. The judge probably increased the prison sentence based on the rape accusations from other women, even though Weinstein was not actually convicted of those crimes. (Yes, a defendant can be punished for crimes they were not convicted of, a fact many people do not realize) Three other women accused Weinstein of raping them at that trial. After that, Weinstein was then sentenced to an additional 16 years in prison in California. For a total of 39 years. Since Weinstein was already 70 years old at the time of his sentencing, it is almost certain that he will have to spend the remainder of his life in prison.
And why didn't the news question this? Because both the Right and Left had reasons for wanting the public to view Weinstein as guilty. The Right because Weinstein was just one more Hollywood pervert, epitomizing the other side of the political spectrum; and the Left because of Feminism and the MeToo movement, savoring the idea of women being viewed as victims being in a fight for social justice, and wanting to bring down a rich white male. So neither political side had a reason to question this at all. Harvey Weinstein found guilty in second sex crimes trial - BBC News, Samantha Granville, December 20, 2022 Harvey Weinstein timeline: How the scandal has unfolded - BBC News, February 24, 2023 related thread: Multiple women coming forward accusing famous men of rape (posted in Law & Justice section, April 19, 2019)
Another theory that could help explain why so many of those women came forward to accuse him is maybe Weinstein did sleep with them. I believe a lot of the women went along with it to advance their career. Basically the whole entertainment industry is sleazy and rotten to the core. I believe he forced himself or coerced the women with careers... but I believe the lionshare of women willfully participated for careers. Once they saw what a disgusting sleeze he was they regretted it. From all the testimonies against him there's evidence that Weinstein cast actresses into roles, and then when they rejected his advances he made sure they got fired from their roles. Trying to lure women into his bedroom or push them to take a shower with him. I think it's very possible that Weinstein did force himself on a lot of these women who accused him of rape -- but that he did not actually rape them. But these women felt raped. He took advantage of them, pushed himself on them in inappropriate ways. But these women knew the only way they were ever going to get "just compensation" for what he did to them was to say it was rape. Just a theory. It is after all much easier for women to lie and exaggerate when there was some underlying basis to the story, rather than completely make something up all out of nothing. If that is true, Weinstein sort of got the short end of the stick. Sure, he may have had a long history of horrible sexual misconduct and trying to push and coerce women into sex. But did he deserve to be punished as a rapist? Weinstein was already kind of old at that time, 68 to 70, so these women must have thought he would croak soon. They knew if he was sentenced to even 10 years he would probably not survive to be released from prison. So why not pile on the claims of sexual assault to wring the sponge and get some money out of him? In their minds he was already a slime ball. One more false claim of rape "wouldn't be that bad".
Some will say "Who cares about Weinstein? He did bad things to women." But my point is the only real reason he's in prison is because a long line of women accused him of actual rape, something which I believe there is reason to suspect may not be true. Although Weinstein may be partially guilty himself for inviting that with his long history of sexual mistreatment and coercion of women. It would be a lot harder to prosecute Weinstein for "sexual coercion" if the women did not say that he all-out sexually assaulted them. ("sexual coercion" meaning he pushed himself on them, caught them off guard, put pressure on them, made them feel extremely uncomfortable, and they were afraid to say no because they needed that acting part and were afraid for their careers) No one is saying Weinstein did not commit horrible sexual misconduct and push himself sexually onto a long list of women. But did he actually commit full out rape, and are those women who accused him of rape lying? That is the question. I suspect some may see rape and sexual coercion as the same thing. And maybe they are morally. (Well, of course rape is even worse than sexual coercion but I mean such people see them as being very similar in the same category) But legally they are very different. I think there is a gigantic difference between them, especially in terms of how they should be treated legally. I just see a problem with this how this case was treated. If it hadn't been Weinstein, if it had been some other upstanding man, they might have been willing to give him some more benefit of the doubt. But with Weinstein, I think everyone was much more ready to believe his accusers due to his long history of sexual mistreatment against women. Some could argue whether that is really entirely fair to him. I mean, just because you have a history of doing one type of horrible thing, does that mean people should believe it when you are accused of doing another type of horrible thing that is kind of similar to it but distinctly different in a way that is far worse?
So you believe 87 women were actually full out raped by him, even though not one of them reported it within even a year after it happened. And never mind the fact that these women had LOTS of money to gain by accusing him. They just all suddenly piled up on him and accused him of alleged rapes that they claim had happened 7, 9, 11, 17 years ago.
My opinion or view of the situation is this. It started with women accusing Weinstein of gross sexual misconduct (but not rape). That got coverage all over the news, and millions of women saw that. After that, the first two women who came forward to accuse Weinstein of rape, I suspect he had actually had sex with them and coerced them into it. These women were too afraid for their careers to say no at the time, but they felt raped and violated. They didn't report it at the time because technically it was not a legal rape. But now they felt this was their chance. They realized how awful Weinstein was and realized they had been far from his only victims, and now was the time to make Weinstein pay. So they came forward with rape allegations (false accusations) to get back to him. People were not going to doubt their rape stories because of all the other sexual misconduct Weinstein was already being accused of and his long history of doing creepy things. This was immediately broadcast in the news, and other women realized this was their chance to get in on the action. I think women who Weinstein had never had sex with. These women knew they were near the same place as Weinstein at one point in the past, and could make a reasonably convincing story. They knew Weinstein was going to go down, and they wanted to get some of his money for themselves. We're talking about aging actresses low on funds who needed money. This would also help put them back in the spotlight and give them attention, maybe even help give them some sympathy and possibly jumpstart their acting careers again.
So you just repeatedly claim that, as your opinion, with no explanation or any attempt at rebuttal to my arguments. Thank you for expressing your opinion, but you have not contributed any argument or logical explanation in this discusion.
You do realize my first post was about how 87 women could accuse him of rape and all be lying, don't you? (Or are you conflating and confusing "guilty" with guilty of full-out rape? I'll assume that's NOT the case, since you didn't elaborate)
Let me guess, you're one of those persons who says "We should believe women". Never mind all of those women waited YEARS before they reported what allegedly happened to them. I'd like to know what percentage of those women accusing him of rape have NOT filed lawsuits seeking to gain large amounts of money. Something the media doesn't seem to have thought worthwhile to report on. You must think women should be believed even though they didn't start accusing him of rape until AFTER they saw lots of other women were already accusing him.
I'm one of those people who finds your obsession with defending men guilty of sexual assault concerning.
Keep in mind, these are desperate actresses, who need money. (The only exception to that is Ms Siebel Newsom, currently now married to the governor. I suspect Weinstein did take advantage of her, but that she may be lying claiming it was full-out rape. She was one of the very early accusers) Jennifer Siebel Newsom lied about being raped by Harvey Weinstein because she can't "square away" the fact she had "transactional" sex with the former movie mogul, Weinstein's lawyers alleged. The wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom -- referred to throughout Weinstein’s current sexual assault trial as "Jane Doe 4" -- gave an "overly dramatized" performance on the stand to cover up the shame she felt for having consensual sex with Weinstein, defense attorney Alan Jackson said. Jennifer Siebel Newsom accused of lying about Harvey Weinstein rape (nypost.com) I suspect Weinstein did force himself on her, but that she did not actually say no, that she knew refusing his advances would result in damage to her career or her losing an important acting role. Siebel Newsom first publicly accused Weinstein of misconduct in a Huffington Post essay in October 2017, the day after a New York Times investigation made public multiple allegations against him, and several days before multiple powerful A-list actors also went on the record with their accusations against him. Jennifer Siebel Newsom testifies at Los Angeles rape trial of Harvey Weinstein | Harvey Weinstein | The Guardian
It's actually seems silly that there would be 87 women all lying. Especially since the culture has been for a long time in Hollywood, women had to perform on casting couches if they wanted to succeed in Hollywood. That and that little inconvenience of the trial and conviction by a jury of his peers.
And yet I explained how it is plausible they all could be lying. To understand how this could happen, we need to look at the timeline, fully understand the situation, and understand the many ulterior motives these women could have had for accusing him (anger, greed, desperation for money, thinking like they were doing the right thing by lying, not caring about what would happen to the man they falsely accused because they assumed he was guilty, or did horrible things, and would be spending a very long time in prison anyway).
It wasn't plausible to anyone other than someone obsessed with trying to excuse sexual assault for some curious reason.
I suspect the jury may have convicted him not because they knew for sure that a specific woman was telling the truth about being raped, but simply because there were so many women accusing him, they assumed he must be guilty. Those are two different things, and I think we need to take care to distinguish between the two. If a woman has actually had sex with a man and feels violated, even if rape did not actually happen, such a woman can be quite convincing on the witness stand. The jury will see that such a woman genuinely seems to have been violated, and then will assume that she is telling the truth about having been raped.
How pathological is it to try to exonerate a master manipulator and rampant predator who sexually harassed and sexually assaulted woman for decades? Me thinks thou doth protest too much.
That's partially circular logic. You say that it is wrong for me to argue that a suspect might not have committed rape, because he did bad things by committing rape. Then you also seem to imply it is wrong for me to argue that he might not have committed sexual assault, because he committed lots of sexual harassment.
I find people's use of emotion to interpret facts rather than actual careful consideration of logic to be concerning.
You seem to want to automatically believe those women just because he was a master manipulator and rampant predator. We need to focus on that. I want you to be aware you seem to be using "gut instinct" rather than actual logic. What you're doing is a very common human reaction, however.
I want to point out that there is a big difference between Weinstein forcing himself on women (which probably happened) versus legal sexual assault. We need to draw an important distinction between the two in this case. For the purpose of this thread, and to just help avoid confusion, I'm going to assume if you use the word "sexual assault" that you are only referring to something that would be considered legal rape. I believe some of those women might be telling the truth about Weinstein "forcing" himself on them, but may be lying about some of the details to make it seem like full-out rape (where they did not concede to his advances).
