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The arrests came in swift succession: In the span of a week, federal prosecutors swooped in and charged two prominent men who had seemingly avoided criminal accountability for claims of sexual assault that had swirled around them for years.

The separate cases against the financier Jeffrey Epstein in Manhattan and the singer R. Kelly in Brooklyn and Chicago, both announced earlier this month, suggested that #MeToo has not just shifted the culture. It has also begun to change attitudes within courts, some prosecutors’ offices and, crucially, among victims deciding whether to place their trust in the criminal justice system.

Victims are more comfortable coming forward; prosecutors say they are more confident that juries will believe them. Some detectives are being trained to be more patient and less skeptical of victims, officials say.

“What most people don’t understand is how slanted the criminal justice system has historically been against survivors of sexual assault,” said Kristen Gibbons Feden, a former prosecutor who helped win the conviction of Bill Cosby in 2018 — widely regarded as the first high-profile trial of the #MeToo era.