The jury in Harvey Weinstein’s Los Angeles rape and sexual misconduct trial has been deliberating for a week without coming to a conclusion.
Eight men and four women made up the panel, which left for home on Friday afternoon before reconvening on Monday to continue deliberations.
They have to determine whether to convict the 70-year-old former movie tycoon on two rape accusations and five additional sexual assault counts.
The jurors have had no questions for the court that might provide insight into the status of their work.
They got the case at the end of closing arguments on Dec. 2. They have been deliberating for 5 1/2 days, or about 24 hours total.
The only issue raised, and the only time the attorneys have returned to the courtroom in a week, came Friday morning when one of the five alternate jurors asked if he could be excused because of travel plans. Weinstein’s lawyers objected, and the judge rejected the request.
Despite an appeal, Weinstein’s conviction for rape and sexual assault in New York still carries a sentence of more than 20 years.
If he is found guilty on all counts involving all four women he is accused of abusing in California, he could receive a sentence ranging from 60 years in prison.
All four testified during the trial, along with four other accusers who testified for the prosecution in an effort to prove Weinstein had a history of doing such things.
Jurors were urged by prosecutors to put an end to a man they referred to as a ‘degenerate rapist’s reign of terror.’
Weinstein’s lawyers argued that two of the women’s accusations are entirely fabricated and two others reframed consensual sexual encounters as assault years later, after the #MeToo movement made Weinstein a target.
He has pleaded not guilty and denied engaging in any non-consensual sex.
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