When Harvey Weinstein arrived at the Manhattan criminal courthouse each day in the winter of 2020, he had to navigate throngs of cameras and protesters. Inside, the courtroom was overflowing with reporters prepared to broadcast every moment of his trial to an avid audience.
The trial, in which a jury found Mr. Weinstein guilty of rape, was seen as a critical moment in the #MeToo movement, which demanded accountability for sexual harassment and assault in the workplace. The accusations against him catalyzed activism across the globe, and Mr. Weinstein, once an influential Hollywood producer, was seen as emblematic of the scores of powerful men who lost their jobs after public allegations of misconduct.
But this spring, as Mr. Weinstein, 73, has returned to the same courthouse for a new trial after his initial verdict was overturned on appeal, the scene is markedly different.
Mr. Weinstein, who has been staying at Bellevue Hospital Center in recent weeks because of myriad health problems, is brought to court each morning in a wheelchair. No cameras wait to catch a glimpse of his arrival. A cordoned-off press area in front of the courthouse sits empty. No protesters greet him outside.
Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers believe that the diminished public interest in the case, as well as the waning prominence of the #MeToo movement, bodes well for him. They are betting that the effects of the movement on the nation’s culture and politics, from Hollywood to the White House, have faded, giving them a better chance of success.
At the time of the first trial, #MeToo was “the most important thing in society,” said Arthur L. Aidala, one of Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers. “I think people’s head are in a different place right now,” he added.
Still, legal observers say the change in climate goes only so far. Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers “have a very unsympathetic client,” said Mark Bederow, a criminal defense lawyer and former Manhattan assistant district attorney.
After a six-week trial — and testimony from nearly 30 witnesses — prosecutors and defense lawyers plan to rest on Tuesday.
The relative lack of public interest in the trial is not a perfect gauge of the public’s current feelings about #MeToo, legal experts said. For one thing, the stakes are lower than in 2020 because, since then, Mr. Weinstein has also been convicted of sexual assault in a Los Angeles case and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
And the current Manhattan trial is not happening in a vacuum. Much of the public’s attention has been trained down the street, to where the federal sex-trafficking and racketeering trial of the music mogul Sean Combs is underway, a case that has been seen by some as the music industry’s reckoning with sexual abuse.
In the years since the accusations against Mr. Weinstein were first made public, the #MeToo movement brought about “profound changes” in how cases of sexual assault were handled in the law and in culture that won’t easily go away, said Cheryl Bader, a law professor at Fordham University. That reckoning helped educate the public, gave prosecutors more confidence in bringing cases despite a victim’s “baggage” and broadened the sensitivity toward victims felt by both prosecutors and law enforcement, she said.
Still, the number of sexual assault accusations that lead to criminal convictions remains relatively small. For every 1,000 assaults, only about 28 people are convicted of a felony, according to an analysis by RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.
The culture, Ms. Bader said, took a big step forward during #MeToo, “but perhaps the law could not keep up.”
In the current Weinstein trial, 12 Manhattanites have spent the past six weeks in a wood-paneled room on the 13th floor of the criminal courthouse.
They have heard harrowing accounts of sexual assault and rape from three accusers. The testimony — from Miriam Haley, Jessica Mann and Kaja Sokola — makes up the core of the Manhattan district attorney’s case against Mr. Weinstein. The retrial has closely resembled the first proceeding.
Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers cross-examined each of the women for hours, working to discredit their stories. They had entered into relationships with Mr. Weinstein consensually, the lawyers argued, asking each of the women about their continued contact with him after the alleged assaults. And in each case, they also asked the women about settlement payments they had received through a lawsuit and a fund established in the bankruptcy of Mr. Weinstein’s company.
On Wednesday, the defense began laying out its own case.
“We’re hoping that the jury now can focus on the evidence in the courtroom and not the scene outside of the courthouse,” he said, referring to the daily spectacle during the 2020 trial.
Mr. Aidala has said that his client is “seriously considering” taking the stand.
Mr. Weinstein made a name for himself as a Hollywood star-maker and collected a list of accolades for movies like “Pulp Fiction” and “Good Will Hunting.” Simultaneously, he wielded his power to harass and sexually assault women, many of whom were young and trying to make it in the industry, according to dozens who came forward.
He was charged in New York and later convicted of rape and a criminal sexual act. Mr. Weinstein is appealing his sex crimes conviction in California.
Last April, New York’s highest court overturned the Manhattan conviction in a 4-to-3 decision and ordered a new trial. The justices ruled that Mr. Weinstein had been deprived of a fair trial because the judge had allowed testimony from women who had not been part of the formal charges against him.
As he has returned to court, the intensity of the movement that helped facilitate his downfall has changed. In the years since Mr. Weinstein’s first trial, a patchwork of convictions, acquittals, institutional reckonings and resurrected reputations has made it hard to measure #MeToo’s success.
In 2021, Bill Cosby, the actor whose high-profile trial for sexual assault was the first such trial to unfold in the aftermath of the movement, had his conviction overturned. Kevin Spacey, the two-time Oscar winner who faced allegations of inappropriate behavior, was acquitted of charges of sexual assault in Britain in 2023.
To some legal observers, the public turning point in the movement was marked by the 2022 civil defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, after which a jury awarded Mr. Depp $10 million for a 2018 essay in which Ms. Heard implied that he had abused her. Some believed the decision could embolden similar defamation lawsuits against accusers, while having a chilling effect on people coming forward.
Jane Manning, a lawyer and advocate for rape survivors, described a backlash to the #MeToo movement in recent years.
“You can see this in the fact that there are political candidates with a very well-documented history of abusing or harassing women who are getting mainstream support,” she said. “I don’t think they would have gotten it five years ago.”
In New York City, three of the candidates for mayor have weathered accusations of sexual misconduct. Andrew M. Cuomo, the front-runner, resigned as governor in 2021 amid accusations of sexual harassment. The same year, Scott M. Stringer, a former city comptroller, was accused by two women of sexual harassment decades earlier. The incumbent, Eric Adams, was accused in a lawsuit of sexually assaulting a colleague in 1993.
All three men have denied the accusations and challenged their accusers in court.
In Mr. Weinstein’s case, prosecutors and defense lawyers are expected to present closing arguments to the jury this week. He is charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual act and one count of third-degree rape. Both top charges carry a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.
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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