Harvey Weinstein has a cell phone problem. More specifically, he has a cell phone entitlement problem so great that, on Tuesday morning, the judge overseeing the disgraced movie mogul’s rape trial threatened to throw him in jail.
“Is this really the way that you want to end up in jail for the rest of your life, by texting and violating a court order?” asked Judge James Burke, who is overseeing Weinstein’s Manhattan trial for sexually assaulting two women. (Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and denies the accusations of the more than 80 women who have publicly accused him of sexual assault or harassment since 2017.)
Burke, a former prosecutor who has been on the bench since 2001, has emphatically banned cell phone use in his court. He has reprimanded Weinstein and his lawyers a number of times for violating the ban. But even as he faces charges that could put him in prison for life, Weinstein seems unable or unwilling to abide by instructions, rules, and boundaries set by anyone but himself. Burke has a salty demeanor, a dry sense of humor, and, based on Tuesday, little patience for Weinstein’s antics or his lawyers’ excuses. The judge’s preferred method of scolding is pedantry. First he asked defense attorney Arthur Aidala to state, on the record, what Burke said the last time Weinstein played with a phone.
“You said you never want to see a cell phone in my client’s hand,” said Aidala.
“Because it was my intention to do what?” asked the judge.
“To change his bail conditions,” said Aidala.
“To what?”
“I believe you said remand.”
Remand would mean revoking bail and sending Weinstein to jail. Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon had already planned to request exactly that on Tuesday. She argued that a Los Angeles arrest warrant issued on Monday for new rape and sexual battery charges could tempt the “man of great means” to take flight. Burke rejected the request.
Los Angeles and New York are among the cities where Weinstein has long wielded power. In 2017, New York magazine journalist Rebecca Traister wrote that she witnessed Weinstein call himself the “fucking sheriff of this fucking lawless piece-of-shit town” at a party at New York’s Tribeca Grand Hotel in 2000. (According to Traister, he also called her a “cunt” and shoved a fellow journalist down the stairs.) In court, surrounded by members of law enforcement who carried handcuffs and wore gold shields, I watched Weinstein’s lawyers repeat the same apologies and promises they have made, for months, about this relatively small infraction that requires only the tiniest effort to prevent. And I thought about other apologies and promises Weinstein has made in the last two years.
More than once Weinstein has packaged #MeToo denials with admissions of smaller misbehaviors and, he says, noncriminal offenses. More than once he has said he is a changed man. The character flaws and bad choices that he admits to—and says he has repaired—are several million magnitudes smaller than the felony charges for which he now stands trial. In an emailed correspondence with CNN, Weinstein wrote that “the past two years have been grueling,” but rehab, self-reflection, and meditation have allowed him to change his worst traits and ugliest habits.
“I have learned to give up my need for control,” he wrote.
On Tuesday, Judge Burke didn’t even trust Weinstein to control the contents of his pockets.
“Mr. Aidala, this is on you if he blows it,” Burke said of his decision to uphold the current conditions of Weinstein’s bail—and of his future obedience.
Aidala apologized on his client's behalf.
“I’m not looking for apologies,” said Burke. “I’m looking for compliance.”
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