Jury deliberations begin in Weinstein's Los Angeles trial

Jurors in Los Angeles began deliberations on Friday in the trial of  Harvey Weinstein. He faces charges of rape and sexual abuse.

The former Hollywood mogul is already serving a 23-year sentence for a conviction in New York and could receive a prison sentence of more than 60 years in California if convicted on all counts. He is charged with two counts of rape and five charges of sexual assault from four women. The events allegedly took place between 2005 to 2013.

One of the four women has been identified by her lawyer as Jennifer Siebel Newsom, wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom.

What the lawyers said

"You have irrefutable, overwhelming evidence of the nature of this man, and what he did to these women," Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson told the jurors in his rebuttal to the closing argument delivered by the defense a day earlier.

Weinstein's lawyer Alan Jackson spoke about the absence of physical evidence. He told jurors two of the accusers were lying, and the other two had reframed "transactional" and "100% consensual" sexual acts as assaults.

"Where is the evidence that there is any motivation, other than to get justice for being sexually assaulted?" Thompson said in his rebuttal. Prosecutors accused the now 70-year-old Weinstein of using his physical and professional power to abuse women for years. This made it difficult for the women to speak out against him for years without risking their careers, they said.

The trial, which went on for weeks, heard graphic descriptions of encounters between the women and Weinstein, which took place in California hotel rooms.

Some women described how they begged him to stop as he forced himself on them, made them perform oral sex, or at times made them watch him masturbate.

Weinstein did not testify. He is currently incarcerated in California. In the UK, he also faces two counts of indecent assault against a woman in 1996.

tg/sms (AFP, AP)