Harvey Weinstein’s Sex Crimes Trial in L.A. Enters the Final Stretch

During the meeting, often while mentioning his fame and influence, he would invite the woman to his hotel suite. Or, in some instances, a female aide would usher the woman into his room and then leave, Ms. Martinez said.

“For this predator, hotels were his trap,” she said. “Confined within those walls, victims were not able to run from his hulking mass.”

After the assaults, Mr. Weinstein would try to recast the encounters as “transactional,” by following up on his offers to advance the women’s careers, Ms. Martinez said. He talked about a book deal with a masseuse and about film roles with others, and he invited them to Hollywood events.

“He always covered his tracks,” Ms. Martinez said.

Defense lawyers focused on inconsistencies in the accounts of accusers.

Throughout the trial, Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers focused on ways in which the accounts of the witnesses changed over multiple interviews. The lawyers also sought specific details from the accusers and questioned their inability to remember some facts.

In cross-examining an actress who said she was assaulted in 2013, Alan Jackson, one of the defense lawyers, took issue with the timeline she had given the authorities, as well as why she had not initially remembered the name of the hotel where she said the assault had occurred. She said that she had been distraught during her initial interviews and that she had pushed the incident out of her memory.

As Mr. Jackson pressed further, the woman said, “I was sure that I was sexually assaulted.”

Mark Werksman, another defense lawyer, challenged Jennifer Siebel Newsom multiple times about her past statements that she had been raped in 2005 by Mr. Weinstein.

Ms. Siebel Newsom, the wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, said during her testimony that when she had initially talked to detectives, she had not known that her words would be used in a court case. She also said that she had locked away the incident in her mind for years and that it had taken time to unpack what had happened.