Weinstein

[American Psycho]

Cosby was convicted, now Weinstein is heading for trial.

If the current movement is anything to go by I'd not be feeling very optimistic if I were in his shoes.

His lawyer seems to be playing a serious game though. Originally he said he was certain he was going to get the charges dismissed after the first court appearance; not sure if that's just a game he plays to sound confident. He's now hinting he's going to be subjecting the accusers to some seriously harsh cross examination, probably to try to frighten them - but they seem pretty defiant. I get what he's doing but I just don't see any of this endearing him to any jury.

What are some thoughts on how this case will play out?

[Modee]

A good attorney will sometimes try to play the case out in the court of public opinion, if that seems advantageous to the client. But this sort of strategy may backfire too. It could also be a sign that his defense isn't as strong as it could be, hence the public opinion court tactic.

[American Psycho]

I get what you're saying. Still I can see where he's going that he's trying to intimidate the complainants that he's going to tear them apart on cross examination. I imagine this is going to backfire in this case and make the jury dislike him even more. Looks like Weinstein will get some fairly serious jail time.

[American Psycho]

I watched this case play out. Weinstein behaved badly, I've no doubt about that and I'm not defending him. But if you actually look at the cases he was convicted on they don't seem right to me, and I'm sure if it was anybody else they would have been acquitted. I mean one accuser admitted she was in a relationship with him before, during and after the activity and said she did it to further her career. Maybe there was one time when she wasn't all that into it but she went along with it anyway, and then years later she decides to cry out 'Me Too' and that gets him 23 years. Ridiculous. He got convicted just because his name was Weinstein.

[Modee]

Weinstein went down hard. But you have to figure that he probably got away with a lot more than what he was convicted of. So I don't feel sorry for him particularly, although the sort of things he did were probably the norm in Hollywood for many decades.

[American Psycho]

Off topic of Weinstein, but on a similar theme of Epstein, I saw his partner in crime just recently got charged. But the things she got charged with were from the 90s, how can this be when the statute of limitations expired on this stuff? Also, Modee has said many times the authorities have 6 months to charge someone in an investigation, but Maxwell has been under investigation for years and only just got charged. What's going on here?

[Modee]

I never said the authorities have six months to charge someone...I merely said that if nothing has happened for six months after the events in question during a typical investigation nothing will ever happen.

In this case EVERYthing did happen within six months, but then it just took them a while to find the target. In this case, the earnest investigation started when the victims came forward, not when the events happened.

As far as Statutes of Limitations (SOL) these may range from a few years to life, depending on the crime and jurisdiction.