SCOLDED AGAIN

Harvey Weinstein's Attorney Accused of ‘Jury Tampering’ After Newsweek Op-Ed

Prosecutors slammed the Sunday op-ed penned in Newsweek, stating that “if this is conduct that is allowed to persist in this courtroom, we are all lost.”

Prosecutors in Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial slammed the movie mogul’s defense attorney on Tuesday, calling a Sunday op-ed she penned for Newsweek an attempt at “jury tampering.” Defense attorney Donna Rotunno’s article implored the jury to “look past the headlines” and “to base their verdict solely on the facts, testimony, and evidence presented to them in the courtroom.” She asked the jury to “do what they know is right” and find her client not guilty of several charges, including sexual assault and rape, based on the evidence presented in the four-week trial. “If this is the conduct that is allowed to persist in this courthouse, Judge, then we are all lost,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi said Tuesday, arguing the piece was written at the behest of Weinstein. 

Rotunno argued her op-ed was merely a take on the jury system as a whole. She said she felt compelled to write it after the “media attacks against Mr. Weinstein every single day” and the prosecution’s allegations that her client is a “rapist” and a “predator.” The defense attorney has previously been scolded for an interview on The Daily podcast, in which she said she had never been a victim of sexual assault because she would never put herself “in that position.” While Justice James Burke took no immediate action, he cautioned Weinstein against using “the tentacles of your public relations juggernaut.”

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Pilar MelendezSenior National Reporter

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