Harvey Weinstein ‘Perp Walked’ Into the Future of #MeToo

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/25/us/harvey-weinstein-perp-walk.html

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Dear readers,

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In Harvey Weinstein’s case, the image of the former film mogul in handcuffs on Friday, perp walking his way into the New York Police Department’s First Precinct, in Lower Manhattan, two words may actually get the job done: Time’s Up.

On Friday, Mr. Weinstein turned himself in on charges of rape and committing a criminal sex act for incidents involving two women. He walked in with a handful of books under his arm and emerged, an hour later, with three sets of handcuffs fastened to his wrists (they were linked in order to stretch across his back).

“He used to be the king of TriBeCa,” tweeted Jodi Kantor, the New York Times reporter whose investigation with Megan Twohey broke the news of Mr. Weinstein’s abuse. “Now he’s turning himself in there.”

Anyone who’s been tasked with camping out at a police station, waiting for a criminal to be walked out, has seen this before. (Jessica’s first job in journalism was the cops beat at The Boston Globe; Maya works on our breaking news team at The Times.)

But this perp walk by a man who once proclaimed himself untouchable, who claimed to have “eyes and ears everywhere,” who represented a kind of male privilege and power that has long felt beyond reach — and who was led, restrained, into his arraignment by a female detective — felt as if it represented something larger.

“We got you, Harvey Weinstein, we got you,” tweeted the actress Rose McGowan, who was one of the first women to come forward publicly last fall about Mr. Weinstein’s history of sexual misconduct. “I have to admit I didn’t think I would see the day that he would have handcuffs on him,” she said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Asia Argento, an Italian actress and director who is among Mr. Weinstein’s accusers, wrote on Twitter: “Today Harvey Weinstein will take his first step on his inevitable descent to hell. We, the women, finally have real hope for justice.”

The perp walk is a long-debated practice in the criminal justice world. In France it is banned — in part because, as David Greenfield, a former city councilman from Brooklyn, once put it: “Even Mother Teresa dragged out by detectives would look guilty.” (Mr. Greenfield proposed a local law in 2011 that would have banned the practice, but it was never put in place.)

But the sight of Mr. Weinstein in those handcuffs offered a tangible image, long-sought proof, that the collective sound of women’s voices had been heard over the din.

Catharine A. MacKinnon, the trailblazing legal scholar who first defined sexual harassment, recently wrote that #MeToo had done what the law could not. The mass mobilization, she said, had eroded one of the biggest barriers to prosecuting sexual harassment: “the disbelief and trivializing dehumanization of its victims.”

If women speaking out was the first phase of #MeToo, then the second is proving to be concrete legal ramifications — and public humiliation. Mr. Weinstein has lost the ability to go down quietly.

Below is a brief taxonomy of Mr. Weinstein’s epic unraveling, as told through The New York Times’s most notable coverage.

Jessica & Maya

A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation by the reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey about the allegations against Mr. Weinstein, and about how he had for decades paid off his victims, opened the floodgates.

The article represented multiple women — among them the actresses Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan, who went on the record with specific allegations against the producer.

[Read more: “The balance of power is me: 0, Harvey Weinstein: 10.”]

New accusations of rape, groping and forced oral sex dating back to the 1970s began to pile up against Mr. Weinstein, as dozens of accusers continued to speak out, including the stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie, who added their names to the #MeToo movement.

[Read more: “This way of treating women ends now,” Ms. Paltrow said.]

The personal accounts from women whose lives and careers were damaged by Mr. Weinstein’s behavior left a deep mark on many Americans. Two of those women, the actresses Salma Hayek and Lupita Nyong’o, wrote about their chilling experiences with the mogul for our Opinion section.

[Read more: “I speak up to contribute to the end of the conspiracy of silence,” Ms. Nyong’o said; “I don’t think he hated anything more than the word ‘no,’” Ms. Hayek said.]

First, Mr. Weinstein resigned from the Weinstein Company’s board, which quickly descended into chaos. Hachette Book Group shut down the Weinstein Company’s publishing imprint, Weinstein Books.

He was ousted from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a rare action for the organization, which had awarded his studio five best picture Oscars, including for “Shakespeare in Love” and “The English Patient.”

In March, the Weinstein Company filed for bankruptcy. This month, it named a Dallas private equity firm as the winning bidder in its bankruptcy sale, though plaintiffs suing the studio oppose the plan.

[Read more: Anyone “who suffered or witnessed any form of sexual misconduct by Harvey Weinstein” was released from nondisclosure agreements.]

On Friday, Mr. Weinstein was arrested and charged in New York. Prosecutors in Los Angeles and police in London have also been investigating sexual assault allegations against him. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have broadened their inquiry into possible financial improprieties to include accusations that Mr. Weinstein violated federal stalking laws.

In 2015, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., decided not to pursue sexual abuse charges after accusations by Ambra Battilana, a model from Italy, claiming that his office did not have enough evidence to prosecute.

[Read more: Charged With Rape, Weinstein Posts $1 Million Bail and Surrenders Passport]

The actresses Rose McGowan, Asia Argento, Mira Sorvino, Annabella Sciorra and others reacted to the news of Mr. Weinstein’s arrest with satisfaction, relief and even joy.

[Read more: “I have a visceral need for him to have handcuffs on,” Ms. McGowan said.]

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