The Guardian

Donna Rotunno: the legal Rottweiler leading Harvey Weinstein’s defense

The conventional, retrograde defense Rotunno is spearheading is almost as though the #MeToo movement had never happened
Harvey Weinstein with his lawyer, Donna Rotunno, at the New York court hearing on 14 January. Photograph: Startraks Photo/REX/Shutterstock

At the end of the first day of the Harvey Weinstein trial in New York, after prosecutors had described the defendant to the jury as a predatory monster who sexually attacked numerous women, the fallen titan of Hollywood was asked whether he was feeling confident.

After all, he is looking at spending the rest of his life behind bars.

“Very confident,” Weinstein shot back as he trundled past reporters in the New York supreme court, leaning heavily – in pain or as role-play, nobody quite knows – on his signature walking frame. “I got great lawyers.”

He might have said, “I got a great lawyer.” For the tone and tactics of his defense – and

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