Harvey Weinstein trial, Judge dismisses Trump defamation lawsuit, Epstein : I Was Donald Trump’s Closest Friend

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•  Harvey Weinstein is going on trial again in a New York rape case
• Judge dismisses Trump $10B defamation lawsuit against Murdoch, WSJ about Epstein letter
• Listen To The Jeffrey Epstein Tapes: ‘I Was Donald Trump’s Closest Friend’

 

Harvey Weinstein is going on trial again in a New York rape case
By  JENNIFER PELTZ April 14, 2026

NEW YORK (AP) — After years of #MeToo infamy, legal peril and prison, Harvey Weinstein is again going on trial on a rape charge in New York City.

Jury selection started Tuesday in the onetime movie mogul’s latest retrial, where jurors will weigh — for the third time — whether he raped hairstylist and actor Jessica Mann in a Manhattan hotel in 2013.

This time, jurors will consider only one charge based on one accuser, rather than the array of allegations that were aired at Weinstein’s previous trials in New York and Los Angeles. The Oscar-winning producer denies all the accusations and declared in court this winter that he had “acted wrongly, but I never assaulted anyone.”

Prosecutors might also seek to introduce new evidence. After Weinstein arrived in court Tuesday, but before jury selection began, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Candace White told the judge that prosecutors might seek to include testimony from a court security officer about something Weinstein allegedly said six years ago.

According to White, the officer said he was on hand for Weinstein’s February 2020 sexual assault conviction — which was later overturned — and heard Weinstein say: “If you had seen these girls, you would have done the exact same thing.”....Weinstein wielded significant clout in the entertainment industry, having built his reputation on such critical and popular hits as “Shakespeare in Love,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Chocolat.” He also became a prominent Democratic donor. Then a series of sexual harassment and sex assault allegations against Weinstein began to emerge in news media in 2017, propelling the #MeToo movement. He was criminally charged in New York in 2018 and in Los Angeles two years later....Weinstein went to trial and was convicted of some — but not all — counts in both cases. His initial New York convictions were overturned, spurring a retrial last year.

The retrial verdict was mixed: Weinstein was convicted of forcing oral sex on production assistant and producer Miriam Haley in 2006, but he was acquitted of forcibly performing oral sex on model-turned-psychotherapist Kaja Sokola. The jury didn’t decide on the rape charge involving Mann because the foreperson refused to keep deliberating.....The defense claimed that Mann and his other accusers willingly entertained his sexual overtures because they wanted his help with their show-business aspirations. The women, by contrast, said Weinstein dangled his Hollywood influence to draw them into his orbit and then victimize them....
https://apnews.com/article/harvey-weinstein-rape-trial-metoo-4c1ab0f9aed5d563a1146c799dd0250d 

Judge dismisses Trump $10B defamation lawsuit against Murdoch, WSJ about Epstein letter Mon, Apr 13 2026  Dan Mangan

A Florida federal court judge tossed out a $10 billion defamation lawsuit by President Donald Trump against media baron Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal.
Trump claimed he was defamed in a Journal article that said he sent a birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein, his then-friend.

Trump will be allowed to file an amended lawsuit in the case, Judge Darrin Gayles said in his ruling in U.S. District Court in Miami....

Gayles said he had to dismiss the civil complaint because Trump, who has adamantly denied sending the letter to his then-friend Epstein in 2003, had “not plausibly alleged that the Defendants published the Article with actual malice.”

Plaintiffs who are public figures like Trump must show that a defendant had actual malice when they made allegedly defamatory statements, according to legal precedent.
Gayles said Trump’s complaint “falls short of pleading actual malice,” and also said the president “comes nowhere close to” the standard for showing that the newspaper deliberately avoided investigating the truth of the statements it published about the letter.

“The Article explains that, before running the story, Defendants contacted President Trump, Justice Department officials, and the FBI for comment,” the judge wrote.
“President Trump responded with his denial, the Justice Department did not respond at all, and the FBI declined to comment. In short, the Complaint and Article confirm that Defendants attempted to investigate.”

And Gayles noted that the article included the fact that Trump denied writing the letter, which makes an allegation of actual malice less plausible.
But the judge, in giving Trump a second chance in the case, pointed to another precedent that says a plaintiff “should have the opportunity to amend his complaint” if a lawsuit was tossed out for failing to plead facts in a suit “giving rise to an inference of actual malice.”....
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/13/trump-epstein-murdoch-wsj-lawsuit-dismissed.html 

Listen To The Jeffrey Epstein Tapes: ‘I Was Donald Trump’s Closest Friend’
thedailybeast.com/listen-to-the-jeffrey-epstein-tapes-i-was-donald-trumps-closest-friend
THE PREDATOR AND THE PRESIDENT
Explosive tapes recorded by author Michael Wolff show Epstein claiming Trump liked to “f---” his friends’ wives and first slept with Melania on the “Lolita Express.”

Exclusive
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty Images Jeffrey Epstein described himself as Donald Trump’s “closest friend” and claimed intimate knowledge of his proclivity for sex, including cuckolding his best friends, according to recordings obtained exclusively by the Daily Beast.  The convicted pedophile even boasted of his closeness to Trump and his now-wife Melania by claiming, “the first time he slept with her was on my plane,” which was dubbed the Lolita Express.

Epstein spoke at length about Trump with the author Michael Wolff in August 2017, two years before being found dead in his jail cell. Wolff was researching his bombshell bestseller Fire and Fury at the time....The tapes tell Epstein’s version of the relationship between two former friends and their very different paths: One toward infamy, prison and suicide; the other toward power, the Oval Office and his own criminal conviction for paying hush money to a porn star. Trump’s camp referred to the tapes’ release as “false smears” and “election interference.” The tapes also offer unusual insight into the friendship of two wealthy, powerful men who frequently went out on the town together, prowling for women in New York and Atlantic City....
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU08/20250227/117951/HHRG-119-JU08-20250227-SD006-U6.pdf