As the first day of jury selection for Harvey Weinstein’s trial began in Manhattan, about 70 prospective jurors shuffled into the courtroom and were asked to stand. As they were sworn in, the court clerk said Mr. Weinstein’s name and a woman gasped.
The judge dismissed more than half of that group after they said they had scheduling conflicts or that they could not be impartial in the trial of Mr. Weinstein, a Hollywood mogul whose name became synonymous with sexual abuse. And so went four days during which the judge, prosecutors and defense attorneys slowly winnowed nearly 300 people.
On Tuesday, for the second time in five years, a jury of 12 Manhattanites and six alternates was chosen to decide Mr. Weinstein’s fate.
The judge and lawyers sifted through dozens of people who displayed various degrees of shock, interest and opinion about Mr. Weinstein, whose fall amid accusations of sexual assault and harassment propelled the #MeToo movement.
Mr. Weinstein, 73, faces two counts of first-degree criminal sexual act and one of third-degree rape after complaints by three women who said he assaulted them in 2006 and 2013.
He was convicted in 2020 of rape and criminal sexual act based on the complaints of two of the women and was sentenced to 23 years in New York prison. But his conviction was overturned last year and a new trial was ordered. In the interim, prosecutors added a new indictment.
Mr. Weinstein has also been convicted in California on sex-crime charges and faces a prison term there. He is appealing the California conviction. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges against him.
The new trial began in Manhattan criminal court last week, when prosecutors and Mr. Weinstein’s legal team began selecting from several pools of eligible jurors.
In one group, a man reacted to hearing Mr. Weinstein’s name with his eyebrows shooting toward his hairline; the man excused himself after the judge instructed people to leave if they had serious scheduling conflicts or if they could not be objective.
Others were dismissed by prosecutors and defense lawyers.
While being questioned by a prosecutor on the second day, one man said he thought the #MeToo movement had gone too far. He told a prosecutor, Nicole Blumberg, that his feelings were based on a personal experience of seeing high school classmates accused of sexual assault when “it ended up being nothing.”
A woman chimed in, saying she had “the opposite feeling,” and that she believes the movement did not go far enough.
Both were dismissed.
Another man who had initially said he could be impartial had a change of heart. The man, an investment manager from the Upper East Side, said he had been “parsing” his feelings over two days and wanted to discuss his discomfort.
Earlier, one of the defense lawyers, Arthur L. Aidala, had asked the group what word came to their minds when they thought of Mr. Weinstein.
“The first word that came into my head was ‘pig,’” the man told the judge and lawyers. “I apologize, but I feel like a great sense of responsibility as a citizen and I take this stuff seriously.”
He was dismissed.
Here is what we know about the 12 jurors, based on their statements in court:
Juror 1, the foreman, was born in the Dominican Republic and came to New York in 1996. Currently unemployed, he has worked as a supervisor.
Juror 2 is a native New Yorker who lives on the Upper West Side, has a master’s degree in international business and works for a nonprofit.
Juror 3 is a native New Yorker who lives on the Lower East Side, has a master’s degree in mathematics and works as a research associate.
Juror 4 is a native New Yorker who lives in East Harlem, has master’s degrees in economics and sociology and is retired.
Juror 5 moved to New York from the Dominican Republic around 2000, lives in Inwood and has a bachelor’s degree in computer science.
Juror 6 is a native New Yorker who lives on the Upper West Side, has a bachelor’s degree in communications and works in corporate communication.
Juror 7 is a native New Yorker who lives in East Harlem, has an associate degree in information technology and works for a private bank.
Juror 8 is a native New Yorker who lives on the Upper West Side with her mother and child and works as a still photographer.
Juror 9 is a native New Yorker who lives in Harlem, has an associate degree in business and has worked as an administrator and an auditor for a city agency.
Juror 10 is a native New Yorker who lives in Greenwich Village, has a master’s degree in nutrition and works as a dietitian.
Juror 11 is a native New Yorker who lives on the Upper West Side, has a bachelor’s degree in English and is retired.
Juror 12 is from Georgia and moved to New York in 2013. He now lives on the Upper West Side and works at a bank.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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