Harvey Weinstein Will Not Testify In New York Retrial

Harvey Weinstein will not testify as part of his criminal trial, though the former mogul wanted to take the stand.

On May 29, Arthur Aidala, Weinstein’s attorney, told reporters Weinstein was “seriously contemplating” taking that stand, but that his team would make a “game-time decision.” The team confirmed Monday that he would not take the stand, as it opens up Weinstein to undue risk, but said that Weinstein had still wanted to share his side of the story. 

“He’s not hiding, and we’re not shielding him. He wants to testify, and we respect that. But the courtroom isn’t just about truth — it’s also strategy,” Juda Engelmayer, a spokesperson for Weinstein, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Instead, the trial will move to closing arguments Tuesday, with the defense expected to rest their case that morning, a little more than a month after opening arguments began April 23. Jurors will then get the case. The court is not in session Monday. 

Weinstein is being retried on a criminal sexual charge and a rape charge related to respective claims from a former production assistant on Project Runway, Miriam Haley, who alleges he forced oral sex on her at his Manhattan apartment in 2006, as well as from aspiring actress Jessica Mann, who alleges she was raped by Weinstein in 2013 in a Manhattan hotel. Those charges were part of the 2020 trial, but Weinstein’s conviction was overturned in April 2024. 

Former model Kaja Sokola is the new accuser to this trial and has alleged Weinstein forcibly had oral sex with her in a hotel in 2006.

The back-and-forth about Weinstein testifying mirrors the events of his 2020 trial.

Talent agent and manager Thomas Richards Lozano was called as the last witness by the defense Friday, in a repeat of the previous New York trial, when Lozano was also called as the last witness by the defense, according to news reports from that time. 

Weinstein testifying was also a question at that time, but he did not take the stand then.

Lozano gave similar testimony to 2020, saying that he had traveled to New York with Jessica Mann, a friend, at the time of the alleged rape, in March 2013, and that he had breakfast with Mann and Weinstein in the DoubleTree Hotel in Manhattan immediately after the alleged rape is said to have occurred. He called the breakfast “a friendly conversation” and said he did not notice anything amiss. 

Several of the events of this trial have been a repeat of 2020, sometimes word-for-word. Earlier in the day Friday, two court reporters read out loud the transcript of Talita Maia’s testimony from when she took the stand on Feb. 10, 2020, as Judge Curtis Farber said Maia was located outside the state and could not be brought before the court this time. 

In the testimony, Maia, a friend of Mann’s, had testified to initially meeting Weinstein with Mann in 2013 and then attending pre-Oscars and Oscars parties with her and observing as they kept in touch. 

“She seemed to really like him as a person,” the testimony read. One court reporter acted as Maia while another acted as the defense attorney and then the prosecutor on cross-examination.