Jurors were told Thursday that TV writer Eric Weinberg posed as an amateur photographer in order to lure seven women to his Los Feliz home where he sexually assaulted them.
Weinberg, 66, was a writer and producer on “Scrubs,” “Californication” and other shows. He has been in jail since 2022 awaiting trial on 23 counts of rape and sexual assault.
“The defendant had carefully created an image of himself,” said prosecutor Ariel Anson in her opening statement. “These women believed the defendant was this successful, kind family man. They believed he would uphold their boundaries … In reality the women were never safe.”
Weinberg’s trial is expected to last six to eight weeks, as the seven women — identified in court only by their first names — will take the witness stand. The women are expected to have dogs with them to provide emotional support as they testify. An eighth woman, whose allegations are not included in the charges, will also testify.
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“He could be very charming and friendly and charismatic,” Anson said. “He carefully used that mask and a pattern systematically with these women over and over.”
In his opening statement, defense attorney Philip Cohen acknowledged that many jurors may already consider his client a “creep.” But he argued that is not enough for prosecutors to obtain a guilty verdict.
“When you take away the bias, the sympathy, the creep factor, and you look at what the law requires, they have a problem in this case,” Cohen argued. “Is he a criminal? That is the question.”
Both lawyers showed the jury explicit photos that Weinberg had taken of the accusers. In a couple of them, Weinberg’s hand could be seen grabbing the women by the throat.
“The reason we have these photographs is because the defendant documented and took photographs of the assaults as they were happening,” Anson said.
After the photo shoots, Weinberg would provide the women with the images. Some of the women asked him to delete them. One of them wanted to delete them herself, but thought better of it, thinking that it might eventually become evidence for the police.
Cohen argued that in order to find Weinberg guilty of sexual assault, the jurors will have to conclude that he knew the women were afraid. The images, he argued, show Weinberg’s perspective, and in some of them, the women are smiling.
“What was Weinberg thinking?” he asked. “There is not one indication that Weinberg knew of anybody’s fear and took advantage of it.”
The alleged assaults took place from 2014—19. Cohen also argued that the women’s accounts had evolved to become more incriminating than what they initially told police.
He noted that some of the women had been contacted by Weinberg’s ex-wife, who got them to make court declarations in support of her custody fight. Cohen argued that the ex-wife wanted to “put Eric away,” and to help the women obtain civil payouts.
“They strategize about how to do this,” Cohen said.
The prosecution is expected to call Barbara Ziv, a forensic psychologist who is often called in sexual assault cases to explain “rape myths.” Anson said that Ziv’s testimony would help explain why the women at times seemed to placate Weinberg or downplay what happened to them.
“They didn’t fight or kick or scream,” she said. “What they were trying to do was make sure they got out safely.”
