Prosecutor: Weinstein saw victims as ‘complete disposables’
AP
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Harvey Weinstein, center, leaves a Manhattan courthouse after closing arguments in his rape trial in New York, Friday, Feb. 14, 2020. (Photo: AP)

Harvey Weinstein considered himself such a big shot in Hollywood that he thought he could get away with treating aspiring actresses like “complete disposables,” a prosecutor told a jury in closing arguments Friday at his New York City rape trial.

“The universe is run by me and they don’t get to complain when they get stepped on, spit on, demoralized and, yes, raped and abused by me — the king,” Joan Illuzzi-Orbon said, mimicking Weinstein.

Using a TV monitor next to the jury box, the prosecutors displayed photos of “Sopranos” actress Annabella Sciorra and five other accusers who also testified. Illuzzi told jurors that aside from the more successful Sciorra, the others were “complete disposables. They were never going to be in his world.”

Illuzzi also showed a side-by-side comparison of Sciorra’s testimony about confronting Weinstein in the mid-1990s after he allegedly raped her and similar testimony by his rape accuser about how the mogul reacted when she told him she had a boyfriend in 2013.

“His eyes went black and I thought he was going to hit me right there,” Sciorra testified. With the click of a button, the rape accuser’s testimony popped up: “His eyes changed and he was not there. They were very black and he ripped me up.”

At times, Weinstein sat back in his chair staring ahead at a screen in front of the defense table that mirrored what was being shown to the seven men and five women on the jury during the three-hour summation.

Illuzzi’s closing comes a day after the defense offered an epic, hourslong closing argument painting the prosecution’s case as a “sinister tale” absent proof needed to convict Weinstein.

Prosecutors created an “alternate universe” that “strips adult women of common sense, autonomy, and responsibility. ... Regret does not exist in this world, only regret renamed as rape,” Weinstein lawyer Donna Rotunno argued.

Illuzzi countered on Friday by focusing on allegations by Mimi Haleyi that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in his Soho apartment in 2006.

“When an adult goes to another adult’s home, should they expect that they have to engage in sex?” the prosecutor asked. “By going to Harvey Weinstein’s home, did she deserve what she got?”

She added: “There are no blurred lines here. This is a crime and a wanton disregard of other people.”

The jury was sent home for the day, with deliberations set to begin Tuesday.

Weinstein, 67, is charged with raping a woman in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013 and forcibly performing oral sex on Haleyi in 2006. The Associated Press has a policy of not publishing the names of people who allege sexual assault without their consent; it is withholding the name of the rape accuser because it isn’t clear if she wishes to be identified publicly.