When testimony begins in the trial of Harvey Weinstein in the coming days, his defense team is expected to go on the offensive against the women who have accused him of rape and sexual assault, in part by questioning if they acted like victims afterward, the Associated Press reports. New York City prosecutors intend to counter with a strategy that’s taken hold since the 2018 retrial of comedian Bill Cosby: calling a sex crimes expert as a witness to dispel assumptions about how rape and sexual assault victims behave after attacks. Weinstein’s prosecutors are using the same expert, Dr. Barbara Ziv. She was the first prosecution witness at Cosby’s retrial and is expected to testify early in Weinstein’s trial this month.
Ziv, a forensic psychiatrist who has spent decades working with sex offenders and victims, is likely to be an important bulwark against Weinstein’s defense that he had consensual relationships with the two women at the center of the case. One woman who accuses Weinstein of raping her in a hotel room sent him warm emails in the months after the alleged assault. “Miss you big guy,” said one note. There was evidence at Cosby’s trial that he had remained in contact with victims. Ziv testified that victims frequently avoid or delay reporting assaults to police, often keep in contact with the perpetrator, remember more details over time and differ in their emotional responses. Prosecutors are rethinking how they try sexual assault cases, especially those involving intimate partners, mentors and work friends. Through experts like Ziv, they immediately focus jurors’ attention on victim behavior and frame the way jurors hear testimony. Weinstein’s lead lawyer, former Chicago prosecutor Donna Rotunno, says that while some women might regret having sex with the former producer, “regret sex is not rape.”