An hour into the first day of Harvey Weinstein’s criminal trial in New York City, Judge James Burke weighed in on the contentious issue of the media comments by the former mogul’s defense team.
Though Burke ultimately denied prosecutor Joan Illuzi-Orbon’s request for a gag order to preclude the defense from speaking about the case outside the courtroom, Burke told them to “leave the witnesses alone.”
“Just excise the witnesses from your communications going forward,” Burke said. “It’s going to be hard enough to get a fair and impartial jury. None of this will help that, attain that goal.”
Illuzi-Orbon had asked Burke to preclude Weinstein’s defense team from talking about the case outside the courtroom and referred to comments made by Weinstein’s attorney, Donna Rotunno — without saying her name specifically — that she believed were “degrading, humiliating” to the witnesses, including actress and Weinstein accuser Annabella Sciorra.