By: Rusty Brooks
As the Weinstein trial gets underway in New York, the difficult process of jury selection is in full swing.
Page Six reported in an exclusive that: Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers asked a judge Friday to dismiss all prospective jurors present when a panelist said she couldn’t be impartial since her good friend had a run-in with the disgraced movie mogul.
This incident happened on the 4th day of jury selection for the huge trial of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Page Six reported : On Jan. 8, the female juror, whose name is being withheld by the Post, said in open court, “I have a close friend who had an encounter with [the] defendant in his hotel room, and I do not think I can be a fair juror in this case.”
The potential juror did not reveal any further details about her friend and the Weinstein incident.
32 panelists who are still in the jury pool heard the damning comment, and defense lawyer Arthur Aidala filed a motion Friday asking that they be booted from the case.
Justice James Burke denied the motion in court, Page Six reported
Buzzfeed, recently published a piece about a potential juror Xorje Olivares who has a radio show on SiriusXM.
“The judge says, ‘hi, welcome to jury duty, thank you so much for doing this,'” Olivares said. “I do want to let you know that the particular case that you might be considering today is The People v. Harvey Weinstein.” Olivares said the mood in the room changed immediately, after it was revealed what case the perspective jurors were being screened for, Buzzfeed explained.
“It was so palpable,” he said. “Right off the bat I already knew people felt a certain way.”
Olivares recalled a middle-aged woman next to him muttering, “he’s such a monster.” A woman to his other side “just shook her head and kind of just threw her hands up in the air”, Buzzfeed reported.
“You can kind of see people were uncomfortable,” he said. “It really was one of those [things] where you feel tension in the room, and no one quite knows … how to be at ease.”
At least four of five other women said they couldn’t be impartial because they too were survivors of sexual assault,” he said. “Which was insane to me knowing that even within one room there were already five people who were willing to say in public, especially in front of him, that they were survivors of sexual assault”, Buzzfeed reported.
Xorje Olivares was dismissed as a juror.
Finding impartial jurors can be a very difficult case for such a high-profile trial, due to the enormous media coverage Harvey Weinstein has received, it is nearly impossible to find someone who is unaware of his alleged crimes and who is unbiased.
