Inside Benjamin Brafman’s Defense of Harvey Weinstein: ‘I’m Not the Morality Police’

Why did one of New York’s most successful criminal defense lawyers feel up to representing the disgraced movie mogul? [ view in [browser](. add esquire@newsletter.esquire.com to your address book ] [Esquire]( [Sunday Reads] FOLLOW US [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Pinterest]( [Instagram]( [You Tube]( [Google Plus]( ['I'm Not the Morality Police': Inside Benjamin Brafman’s Defense of Harvey Weinstein]( Is Benjamin Brafman a bad man because he helps (allegedly) bad people? He thinks not. "I’m not the morality police," he tells me one afternoon several months ago at his firm, Brafman & Associates PC. "I’m a criminal-defense lawyer." But what if the client is Harvey Weinstein, the former film mogul now facing charges of sexual assault involving two women—and similar allegations from dozens more? Brafman leans back, places his palms on the table, and narrows his eyes, like I’ve just questioned Earth’s roundness. "I’ve spent forty years trying to get to the top of my profession, and this is the most high-profile case in the United States," he says. "It’s flattering to be picked by someone like him." Brafman, seventy, likes to be flattered. "Do you know Jay-Z’s song about me?" he asks, seventeen minutes after we meet. The track, "Welcome to New York City," is actually by Cam’ron, but Hova provided a guest verse name-checking the attorney. In 1999, the budding entrepreneur was accused of stabbing a man he suspected of bootlegging his next album. Brafman landed him a sweetheart plea deal: three years’ probation, zero days in prison. In his verse, Jay-Z raps, "Got Brafman defending me/’Cause New York’ll miss me if I’m locked in the penitentiary." A picture of the two—Brafman’s five-six frame rising to just above Jay’s shoulder, even with the added inch from his signature crest of slicked-back hair—sits among dozens of mementos on top of a credenza. Framed images and awards cover the office, the corner one, on the twenty-sixth floor of a midtown Manhattan high-rise. Celebrity clients get prime wall real estate: There’s Martin Shkreli, the self-styled Pharma Bro (securities fraud); Plaxico Burress, the Giants’ star receiver (attempted criminal possession of a weapon); Dinesh D’Souza, the right-wing agitator (illegal campaign contributions). All either pleaded to lesser crimes or dodged the top charges. Sometimes, when the evidence is overwhelming, you hire Brafman just to cushion your fall. [READ MORE]( [MORE FROM ESQUIRE] [Esquire]( [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Doesn't Have Time to 'Learn the Job.' Neither Did Shirley Chisholm.]( Ocasio-Cortez, like Chisholm before her, is driven by an urgency not typically found in American politicians. AOC faces similar criticism to that faced by Chisholm—the first black woman elected to congress—early in her tenure, and thus far seems to be approaching with same brashness Chisholm once exhibited. 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