Readers React: Harvey Weinstein is not attacking his accusers or police. He’s simply defending himself

To the editor: Your front-page “news analysis” of Harvey Weinstein’s upcoming court hearing in New York seems unfair to any defendant in a criminal case who seeks to defend himself by attempting to prove that the allegations of criminal misconduct made against him are factually untrue.

If there was evidence in the possession of the prosecution team in this case that the lead accuser told a witness that the sexual contact she had with Weinstein was consensual and that evidence was never presented to the grand jury and instead suppressed by the lead detective in the case, that is not merely an “unreliable” witness as you describe.

If the emails kept from the grand jury relating to the other remaining complaining witness actually reveal that just a few hours after she now claims she was raped she was making arrangements to go to a private movie screening being personally hosted by Weinstein, revealing that evidence cannot be fairly described as “attacking the witness.” Your readers deserve to be reminded that there is no other kind of criminal accusation that requires only the corroboration of the mere words of the accuser.

It was the Manhattan district attorney, not the defense, who disclosed and targeted the misconduct of the New York Police Department in this case.

Your article contains a series of characterizations of Weinstein’s defense as being somehow “scorched-earth” or alternatively “repeated attacks on Weinstein’s accusers,” which ignores the actual basis for dismissal in Weinstein’s case and reads instead more like an editorial than a news article.

Lisa M. Wayne, Denver

The writer is an attorney.

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