NEW YORK (AP) — After five weeks of testimony from Harvey Weinstein ’s accusers and other prosecution witnesses at his sex crimes retrial, his defense has started presenting its own witnesses. But it's unclear whether the ex-studio boss himself will be one of them.
He's due to decide in the coming days whether to testify. His lawyers have spent last weekend and recent evenings talking through pros and cons with him, and the discussions were ongoing Thursday evening.
“There's no easy answer,” attorney Arthur Aidala said outside court.
If Weinstein does take the stand, it would be a remarkable twist — and potentially risky legal move — in the yearslong saga of the onetime Hollywood honcho-turned-#MeToo outcast.
Weinstein, 73, is being retried on rape and sexual assault charges because New York's highest court overturned his 2020 conviction. He denies the allegations, and his attorneys maintain that anything that happened between him and his accusers was consensual.
Weinstein didn't testify at his first trial, nor at a separate rape trial in Los Angeles, where he also was convicted and has appealed the verdict. Many defendants in U.S. criminal cases don’t take the stand: The Constitution guarantees that they don’t have to, and jurors are told they can't hold such silence against the accused. Plus, testifying opens a defendant up to pointed questioning from prosecutors.
Weinstein has been watching the New York retrial intently from the defense table, sometimes shaking his head at accusers' testimony and often leaning over to one or another of his attorneys to convey his thoughts.
“He thinks that the evidence in this trial has been challenged very forcefully and that many of the complainants' stories have been torn apart," Aidala said after court Thursday.
But “there is a part of him that is seriously contemplating whether — in a he-said, she-said case — human beings feel obligated to hear the other side of the story,” the attorney added.
Weinstein's lawyers began calling witnesses late Wednesday, starting with a physician-pharmacist discussing a medication that had come up in testimony.
Jurors heard Thursday from Helga Samuelsen, who shared a New York apartment in fall 2005 with Kaja Sokola, one of Weinstein's accusers. Sokola alleges that Weinstein forced oral sex on her the following year, after a series of unwanted advances that began when she was a 16-year-old fashion model in 2002.
Sokola told jurors weeks ago that she never spent time with Weinstein in the apartment where she and Samuelsen stayed. But Samuelsen testified Thursday that one evening the doorbell rang, Sokola answered it and there was Weinstein.
Samuelsen recalled that he and Sokola went into a bedroom, closed the door and emerged about a half-hour later, when Sokola saw Weinstein out. Samuelsen said she never spoke to Sokola about the visit.
“I think I kind of chose to not, really,” said Samuelsen, who was then a photographer's assistant.
Having met Weinstein briefly in summer 2005, she later sought his help as she tried to launch a music career. He made some introductions and invited her to write a never-used movie score, Samuelsen said, and she formed a New York-area cabaret act around 2019 with a woman close to him. Samuelsen now works in insurance in her native Denmark.
During the prosecution's phase of the trial, Weinstein's lawyers asked plenty of questions aimed at raising doubts about the credibility and accuracy of what jurors were hearing from prosecution witnesses, particularly Weinstein’s three accusers in the case: Sokola, Miriam Haley and Jessica Mann.
All three women were trying to build careers in show business and say he preyed on them by dangling work prospects. Mann alleges he raped her in 2013. Haley, like Sokola, accuses Weinstein of forcibly performing oral sex on her in 2006.
The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted, but Sokola, Mann and Haley have given their permission to be identified.
Harvey Weinstein appears for his retrial at a Manhattan criminal court, Thursday, May 29, 2025 in New York. (Spencer Platt/Pool Photo via AP)
Harvey Weinstein appears in a Manhattan criminal court for his re-trial, Thursday, May 29, 2025, in New York. (Timothy A. Clary/Pool Photo via AP)
Harvey Weinstein appears in a Manhattan criminal court for his retrial, Wednesday, May 28, 2025, in New York. (Olga Fedorova/Pool Photo via AP)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”
Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.
“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”
He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”
Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.
More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.
Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.
In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.
Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”
Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.
“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.
The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.
The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.
Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.
In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)
