Former aspiring actress Jessica Mann, whose rape allegations led to charges being brought against Harvey Weinstein, described in graphic detail on the witness stand how she thought he was ‘physically deformed or intersex’ when she saw him naked for the first time.
On the witness stand on Friday, the 34-year-old claimed the disgraced movie, 67, does not have testicles and his penis ‘looks like a vagina’.
Mann sobbed on the witness stand as she told jurors that she was once forced to strip off her clothing during an alleged rape in a New York hotel room in March 2013. In another incident, she says that Weinstein flew into a rage after learning that she was dating an actor, and clawed at her thighs as he pulled off her pants, leaving her with bloody scratch marks.
After the alleged rape, Mann said she regained consciousness to find Weinstein’s penis in her mouth and ‘choked’ on a ‘fluid’ when he climaxed.
Prosecutors hammered home the most serious charges in a case that stems from the allegations of just two of the scores of women who have accused Weinstein of violating them. A conviction could put him behind bars for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, Weinstein’s lawyers plan to seize on Mann’s complicated history with the disgraced film producer, including continued interactions and warm emails she sent him, as they try to raise doubts about her credibility.
Mann’s often sexually explicit testimony revealed how the producer allegedly had her massage his blackhead-covered back in a hotel room, how she faked an orgasm and falsely praised his prowess after he forcibly performed oral sex on her.
Dressed in a black top and dark slacks, with her long black hair parted on the side, Mann was shaking with nerves as she sat in the witness box at Manhattan Criminal Court and had a small blue ball, which appeared to be a stress ball.
She broke down in tears at the first question of where she was from, but then composed herself and spoke with a clear voice.
Star witness: Former Actress Jessica Mann arrives at Manhattan court to testify against Harvey Weinstein at his rape trial on Friday, marking a pivotal moment in the proceedings
Weinstein, 67, emerges from a car outside the courthouse on Friday, when the jury will hear from his accuser Jessica Mann about her alleged rape
Weinstein has been relying on a walker to get around since the beginning of his rape trial. He is seen approaching the courthouse with his walking aid on Friday
Mann told the jury that she grew up on a dairy farm in rural Washington state.
She said that her family were religious and she said she described the community where she was brought up as a ‘cult, it was extremely religious Pentecostal evangelist’.
Mann said her parents divorced when she was four and she left home at 16. When she was 25, she moved to Los Angeles to pursuing an acting career.
She struggled and at one point was homeless and lived in her car, however, through her agent she was invited to parties.
Mann met Weinstein at the engagement party for Michael Lambert in the Hollywood Hills around the end of 2012 as he was talking to a friend of hers.
She said that saw an ‘old man’ who was wearing a tuxedo and looked ‘jolly’.
Mann walked over and asked: ‘Who is this guy?’
‘Weinstein replied, ‘I’m Harvey Weinstein’ and said he produced X,Y,Z movies, I think he said Shakespeare in Love,’ Mann said.
Weinstein thought she was joking, but it soon became apparent that she didn’t know the film.
Later that night, Weinstein bumped into her on her own, Mann testified.
Mann said: ‘He stopped me and said, ‘I want to talk to you, come with me.’ He started to pull me around to the side of the house. I was looking around as if to say, ‘Why is this happening?’
‘He said It’s not good for me for anyone to see us talking,’ she quoted Weinstein as telling her.
Weinstein said that he was ‘interested in [Mann] as an actress’ and said of her friend: ‘Don’t say anything to her but I’m not interested in her’.
Mann said she felt ‘guilty’ but gave Weinstein her number.
Mann said Weinstein once told her she reminded him of his wife, fashion designer Georgina Chapman (pictured together, right, in May 2017) because both women were ‘clumsy’
Soon after, Weinstein’s assistant asked Mann to come in for a meeting, and he took out to buy some books at Book Soup, a Los Angeles bookstore.
She turned up with two friends and he bought her four books, including one on Alfred Hitchcock.
Mann agreed she was ‘excited’ to meet with Weinstein and that it felt like he was ‘interested in me for real.’
She said: ‘This was the biggest…when I met Harvey I’d given up a lot to be in Hollywood. It was a big fight between me and my dad. I thought that God was blessing me for having committed to myself.’
Describing Weinstein’s demeanor, she said he was mostly ‘extremely passionate’ about the books apart from occasion ‘grunting sounds’ that were an ‘almost autistic trait’.
At a dinner at the Peninsula Hotel in Los Angeles, Weinstein pushed things further, Mann said.
Mann is pictured in a scene from the 2013 movie Caveman, where she played a date named Keira
Mann said: ‘It started pretty normal. He was extremely interested in who I was. He asked me many questions; he wanted to know about my family; he wanted to know about my parents’ divorce, how much my father made, if I had a good relationship with my parents’.
At some point, somebody came up to their table and started trying to talk to Weinstein about his film and he got into a huff.
Mann said that she ‘felt sorry for him for that’ because he was famous and being harassed.
Weinstein ordered the hotel staff to take the food up to his hotel suite, and Mann followed him up.
She said: ‘I didn’t want to go up there but I felt I was helping him.
‘He started to undress himself a little bit. I thought he was getting comfortable and he walked into the bedroom. I hesitated…he said let me give you a massage and he took off his shirt.
‘I said, ‘No, I don’t want to give you a massage.’ This went on for a good few minutes. He made me feel stupid, like why did I think it was such a big deal.
‘He said, ‘If you’re not going to let me give you a massage, give me a massage.’
‘At that point he had his shirt off and lotion in his hand’.
Weinstein lay face down on the bed and Mann put the lotion on with a ‘flat palm and stiff fingers’.
Asked to describe the sensation, she said: ‘He had a lot, a lot of blackheads. The texture of that was uncomfortable’.
Afterwards she said that ‘I did express that I was not sexual or comfortable with this with someone I don’t know.’
Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzi said: ‘Were you romantically or physically attracted to the defendant?
Mann replied: ‘No.’
Mann started to receive invitations from Weinstein to more events, and he offered to buy her a dress to attend a fashion show, though she declined that offer.
Weinstein asked her to meet him at the Montage Beverly Hills, and she went with a friend.
In one of the bars, Weinstein continued to talk to Mann about her acting career.
Mann said that he told her she reminded him of his wife, fashion designer Georgina Chapman, because they were ‘both clumsy’ and recounted how his wife ‘tripped when they first met’.
Weinstein told Mann she was ‘prettier than Natalie Portman’ but said she had to ‘clear my skin up’.
He said her friend had to ‘lose weight’, Mann said.
Weinstein said that he had a vampire film and that they would be great for the lead part – so long as they came up to his suite to see the scripts.
Mann said: ‘I laughed and said, ‘Oh no, I know what that means.’ He laughed at me and said, ‘I’m a harmless old man.’
‘Then I got embarrassed because he made fun of me. He was like, ‘Girls, you have nothing to worry about.’
Mann and her friend looked at each other and they went with him. Mann said: ‘I didn’t think with my friend it would be anything bad.’
When they went into Weinstein’s suite, Mann said from the stand, he began to undress himself and went into the bedroom.
Mann and her friend waited in the lounge area, but Weinstein came to the doorframe of the bedroom and called Mann’s name.
Mann said: ‘He grabbed my arm and he closes the bedroom door and (tells my friend) we’ll just be a minute.
‘He had me by both arms and he came to me and was pushing me back and trying to kiss me like crazy.
‘I was like, :’Woah woah woah. I told you I wasn’t sexual and I don’t know you,’ all this stuff trying to calm it down.
‘He’d pushed be back to the bathroom and we got into this sort of tussle back and forth. I was able to turn around so his back was to the wall and I was able to, hopefully, get out to the door.
‘He still had me one arm and wouldn’t let go and the more I fought the angrier he got and his anger scared me and I tried to calm him down.
‘He was saying, ‘Look, you’re going to let me do something for you.’ I said ‘What?’ He wouldn’t tell me. Then he told me to sit on the bed and then that’s when he went down on me.’
Asked to describe his demeanor, Mann said: ‘He was very high-low, high-low. He started to manipulate me, [saying], ‘You accepted my invitations to parties. You aren’t leaving until I do something for you.’
Mann said she was sitting on the bed when Weinstein put his mouth in her vagina, fighting back the tears as she did so.
Mann said: ‘I sort of locked up and got really quiet. I was worried about my friend out there by herself. I faked an orgasm to get out of it. He asked me how it was, if I liked it. I was nervous, so I told him it was the best I ever had’.
In fact, Mann was ‘horrified, confused’, she told the jury.
‘I was confused about what happened, and I made the decision to begin a relationship with him. Part of that was because I was sexual with very few people.
‘I entered into what I thought was going to be a real relationship, but it was extremely degrading from that point on.’
Mann (left) alleges that Weinstein raped her in his New York City hotel room in March 2013, when she was 27 and he was 61, after injecting his penis with erection-inducing drug. Weinstein’s defense will argue the relationship was consensual
A prosecutor said in an opening statement that Weinstein performed oral sex on Mann (third left) against her will after inviting her to a hotel to read a script
She went on: ‘He would talk very dirty to me about fantasies and compared me to other actresses he said were doing kinky and dirty things’.
Mann said that Weinstein needed a ‘fix like a drug addict’ from her.
Asked what kinds of things he would say to her, she quoted him as telling her: ‘Do you like my big fat Jewish d***?’
Mann told the court: ‘The first time I saw him naked I thought he was deformed or intersex. I didn’t know if he was a burn victim but it would make sense. He does not have testicles and it appears like he has a vagina. He does have a penis.
Mann added: ‘He also peed on me once. It was like being discarded after I served a purpose’.
Asked about Weinstein’s hygiene, Mann said: ‘It was bad. He smelled like s***, excuse me, poop’.
Mann said there was no physical attraction, but she said ‘his approval would have meant so much to me.’
She described Weinstein as ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ because of his mood swings, and said there didn’t seem to be a word to ‘trigger’ him into getting angry.
Mann described how on another occasion Weinstein asked her to take part in a threesome with another woman who did not speak much English.
The night started at Soho House in Los Angeles and they went back to his hotel.
Mann said Weinstein ‘orchestrated’ events and told them both to undress.
She said: ‘He said (to the other woman) I want you to go down on her (Mann). I said I don’t want her to do that. She started to be very tense.’
Mann understood that the other woman had never had a threesome before but she could not express what she was feeling because of her poor English.
Mann said that she ‘saw myself in her, unable to communicate, and I broke down’.
She fled into the bathroom and Weinstein was ‘upset and said I’ll never do that again with you’.
Mann’s rape allegation which led to criminal charges being laid against Weinstein stemmed from a trip to New York in March 2013. She said she had traveled to the city with a friend called Thomas, an agent who paid for her trip.
But she ‘panicked’ when she saw Weinstein checking into a hotel shortly before they were supposed to have a breakfast meeting there.
She said that ‘I knew what he was trying to do’ and ‘pleaded’ with the hotel staff not to give him a room.
Mann said Weinstein pulled her to one side and told her not to ’embarrass him’ and ordered her to go upstairs.
Inside the room, Mann said she was ‘so scared’ that her friends would see her coming out of the room with Weinstein and ‘make all these assumptions’.
She said: ‘I attempted twice to open the door but he blocked the door both times. I shut down a little bit and he told me to undress and then he comes to me and grabbed my hand and forced me to start undressing myself.
‘I felt panicked as my worst nightmare was that this dynamic with him was about to be seen by (my two friends).’
Mann said she was ‘very angry and scared’ as that was one of the most ‘escalated’ incidents so far.
She said: ‘I gave up at that point and I undressed and he stood over me until I was completely naked and he told me to lay on the bed. He walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
‘He came out naked and he got on top of me and that’s when he put himself inside of me’.
Mann’s rape allegation which led to criminal charges being laid against Weinstein stemmed from a trip to New York in March 2013. On the witness stand on Friday, she described Weinstein checking in to a hotel where they were meant to have a breakfast meeting before he called her up to the room
Mann said Weinstein pulled her to one side and told her not to ’embarrass him’ and ordered her to go upstairs where the alleged rape took place. Weinstein’s lawyers will argue that Mann exchanged flirtatious texts with Weinsten after the alleged incident
While giving evidence in court, Mann burst into tears and took a few minutes to compose herself in the witness box. As she walked out of the court she could be heard sobbing loudly in the side room
Mann said that Weinstein had been giving ‘commanding type statements’ and was like a ‘drill sergeant’.
After he finished she went into the bathroom and then she saw something that horrified her.
She said: ‘I saw a needle in the trash can. I flipped out. I grabbed it and looked at it. I can’t remember the name but I Googled it.’
Sobbing on the witness stand, Mann continued: ‘It was the realization that he had stabbed himself with the needle and there was blood and he was inside me. I was in shock over that.’
Illuzi asked if Weinstein had used a condom and she said no.
Mann said that she later did some online research about the medication Weinstein used and said that when she Googled it what came up was a ‘dead penis type thing’.
Mann said she did not tell her friends because she was ’embarrassed and wanted them to respect me’.
At breakfast Weinstein acted as if nothing had happened and asked Mann to stay another night to attend a movie premiere.
Mann resisted but eventually under pressure from her friend agreed – but she stayed at her friend’s house because she was scared of Weinstein coming after her again.
Mann said that after the premiere Weinstein ‘wanted me to have tea with him and his daughter Emma’ as if everything was normal but she declined.
She dmitted that she continued to see Weinstein after this but tried to avoid physical contact by making excuses.
A lot of her decision was based on the needle she saw and said that she ascertained Weinstein ‘could only use it so many times’ before the judge cut her off.
Mann said she would ‘delay’ the times between them seeing each other the increase ‘the likelihood of him having used’ the medication, apparently meaning that month.
Illzui asked Mann about her emails to Weinstein after these incidents such as one where complained about feeling like a ‘booty call’ four years after the alleged incident at the Doubletree hotel.
Mann said that she wanted Weinstein to perceive her as ‘innocent and naive’.
She said: ‘It was like the emperor’s clothes, his ego was so fragile and what made me feel safe is worshiping him.’
Illuzi asked: ‘Were you afraid of the defendant?’
Mann said: ‘Yes’.
Illuzi asked: ‘Did that drive the tone of your emails?
Mann said: ‘Yes’.
Jessica Mann points at Weinstein during his sexual assault trial. She described his penis as ‘deformed’ and looking like a vagina, and claimed he has no testicles
During cross-examination, Weinstein’s lawyer Donna Rotunno (pictured standing) asked why Mann didn’t leave during the time he asked her to give him a massage
Illuzi also asked about Weinstein’s connections to famous people, in particular Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Mann said: ‘He loved to tell me about Bill Clinton who was his neighbor. He would talk about all this money he would raise for big organizations. He had a story for almost anyone in the world. The biggest one for me was Bill Clinton’.
Illuzi asked about phone calls between Weinstein and Clinton and Mann said she witnessed at least three.
Weinstien would refer to Clinton as ‘Mr President’, she said.
Mann said: ‘The last two that I saw were when he was raising money for Hillary Clinton.’
Illuzi asked: ‘How did that affect your conduct with regards to the defendant?’
Mann said: ‘I was intimidated more because when you are raising that amount of money for that powerful a person they are not going to want to deal with someone crying rape.’
Before lunch on Friday, Mann began to talk about the last incident with Weinstein when he allegedly raped her in a jealous rage.
She had gotten a job as a hairstylist at the Peninsula Hotel in Los Angeles through Weinstein and had started dating an actor.
Mann said that during one meeting she decided to tell Weinstein.
She said: ‘I was scared to tell Harvey. He would tell me rules such as you can date anyone but you cannot date anyone in the (entertainment) industry. I would find that disrespectful and unprofessional’.
Mann said she told him she was in a relationship and he asked if he was a Wall St guy or a banker.
She said: ‘I looked down and didn’t say anything. He knew’.
Mann burst into tears and took a few minutes to compose herself in the witness box. As she walked out of the court she could be heard sobbing loudly in the side room.
Later in her testimony, Mann said that she knew Weinstein for around a year when the last serious incident happened at the Peninsula Hotel in Los Angeles, where she was working as a hairdresser.
Mann said that the second Weinstein realized she was seeing an actor, he ‘flipped me up from my chair’.
She said: ‘He was screaming: ‘You owe me one more time’ as he was dragging me into the bedroom. I didn’t fall but I was having a lot of trouble keeping my balance because he was pulling me so fast.
‘He threw me down on the bed and he was demanding that I take my clothes off. I was begging him, ‘No, please, no. I have a boyfriend.”
Mann sobbed heavily as she continued her story.
She said: ‘He stood over me and said take your clothes off and I said ‘no’ again. He said: ‘I don’t have time for games’ and lunged at me with both hands onto my pants and he ripped my pants so hard and so fast off me that I had three scratches down each leg from the top of my thigh to right below the knee…the middle scratch had lots of blood.
‘I froze and crawled back to the pillow and got into a ball and I had no strength’.
Weinstein went into the bathroom and came out and raped her, the woman told the court.
Mann blacked out and woke up to find Weinstein’s penis in her mouth. She told the jury that he ejaculated a ‘fluid’ that ‘choked’ her.
Afterwards, Weinstein told her: ‘OK, now you can go have your relationship and you can bring me other girls. You can be my wing girl. Then he apologized to me and said, ‘I’m so sorry about earlier. I just find you so attractive I couldn’t resist.”
Illuzi talked about the years afterwards and Mann said she had ‘very minimal’ contact with Weinstein until 2016.
Illuzi said was it right that ‘something sexual’ happened between her and Weinstein that year and Mann said, ‘Yes.’
Illuzi asked if there was ‘coercion’ involved in that encounter. Mann said, ‘No.’
During cross-examination, Weinstein’s lawyer Donna Rotunno asked why Mann didn’t leave during the time he asked her to give him a massage.
Mann said: ‘I didn’t want to offend him.’
Rotunno asked: ‘You didn’t want to offend him because you wanted what he had to offer?’
Mann said: ‘He had a lot of power.’
Rotunno cut in and said: ‘You liked that power?’
Mann said: ‘It was in my interests not to try to hurt myself.’
Rotunno said: ‘You wanted to use the power he had, correct?’
Mann said: ‘No, I wanted it to be professional.’
Shortly after, Rotunno asked Mann: ‘Miss Mann, you were using Harvey Weinstein?’ but the judge told the witness not to answer that question.
Mann said that she has ‘compassion’ for Weinstein and described him ‘role playing’ an orgasm because she didn’t think he could have one.
Rotunno brought up an email Mann received from a friend with a link to a news story on February 8, 2013, that mentioned that Weinstein had a wife.
Mann said that was the first time she knew he was married. She replied: ‘Ha, ha, ha, I’m so going to ask him.’
Rotunno said: ‘You decided to go out with a married man?
Mann said: ‘Yes. I believe they had an open relationship.’
Rotunno asked Mann about a draft blog post that she had written on her phone, titled ‘The Failed Threesome,’ in which she talked about an ‘older man I was casually dating.’
It was a thinly veiled account of her threesome with Weinstein, but Mann claimed it was meant as an ‘exaggerated’ account of reality and she never published it because it was ‘painful.’
Weinstein’s lawyers say Mann followed up the alleged rape with warm – even flirtatious – emails that said things like ‘Miss you, big guy,’ and no one ‘understands me quite like you.’ The defense says the messages point to a consensual relationship, not a heinous sex crime.
Not once, in more than 400 messages between the two, did the woman accuse Weinstein of harming her, his lawyers have said.
As he left the court, a reporter asked Weinstein: ‘What do you think of Jessica Mann’s description of your body?’
Weinstein said: ‘You should see what the lawyers said,’ apparently referring to comments his lawyers had just made after the hearing.
Another reporter asked him if the description of his body was true.
Weinstein laughed and said: ‘Yeah, perfect’.
On Monday, jurors heard from the other woman whose allegations have led to charges in the New York case. Mimi Haleyi, a former production assistant for Project Runway, testified that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in 2006.
Weinstein has insisted any sexual encounters were consensual.
Two other accusers whose allegations are not part of the criminal charges against Weinstein also testified this week, called by prosecutors to bolster their case that he has violated many women in the same manner over the years.
Last week, Sopranos actress Annabella Sciorra testified that Weinstein overpowered and raped her after barging into her apartment in 1993 or 1994. That allegation is outside the statute of limitations, but is part of prosecutors’ strategy to show that the powerful Hollywood mogul had a habit of preying on women.
Mann (center) is one of two accusers whose allegations of rape against the former producer led to criminal charges
The embattled producer’s lawyers will point to Mann’s warm and flirtatious emails she sent to him after the alleged rape as evidence that he did not force himself on her
Weisntein is seen going up a flight of stairs on foot on his way to court for another day of testimony on Friday
Prosecutors painted Mann (right) a young, vulnerable woman who believed the once-revered movie mogul sincerely wanted to help acting career
Two women who are not part of the criminal charges, Dawn Dunning and Tarale Wulff, have also testified that Weinstein sexually assaulted them. Prosecutors are offering their testimony as evidence of Weinstein’s methods and motives.
Wulff, a former model, said from the stand on Wednesday that Weinstein masturbated in front of her and raped her at his apartment in 2005.
Dunning, a former aspiring actress-turned-costume designer, claimed Weinstein offered her movie roles in exchange for a threesome in 2004 and put his hand up her skirt, touching her vagina, during a meeting at a Manhattan hotel.
A third such witness, Lauren Young, is expected to offer her testimony against the former Miramax producer later in the trial, claiming he groped her in a hotel, masturbated and ejaculated onto a bathroom floor in February 2012 at a dinner event during Oscar season when she was 22.
In questioning those women, Weinstein’s lawyers also took aim at their continued interactions with him, suggesting that a follow-up meeting or communication with Weinstein was a sign that nothing untoward had happened.
But Dr. Barbara Ziv, a sex crimes expert whom the prosecution called as a witness, testified last week that most sex assault victims continue to have contact with their attackers, sometimes because those attackers threaten retaliation if the victims tell anyone what happened.
Victims are ‘hoping this is just an aberration’ and they can also end up blaming themselves, Ziv testified.
Anticipating the defense’s expected line of questioning Friday, prosecutor Meghan Hast told jurors in an opening statement last week that the alleged rape victim had ‘buried her trauma’ and was trying to navigate Weinstein’s powerful grip on her by pretending she wanted to see him and saying nice things.
Prosecutors allege Weinstein took advantage of Mann, a young, vulnerable woman who believed the producer wanted to help her career (pictured arriving in court Friday)
Weinstein has insisted any sexual encounters with Mann and his other accusers were strictly consensual
Something’s funny? Weinstein appeared to be in excellent spirits as he left the court for the day Friday
Weinstein, 67, was asked by a reporter if Mann’s description of his body was accurate, to which he replied with a laugh, ‘Yeah, perfect’
Film producer Harvey Weinstein departs New York Criminal Court after his sexual assault trial in Manhattan
To prosecutors, the woman behind the rape charge is a prime example of a Weinstein target: a young, vulnerable woman who believed the once-revered movie mogul sincerely wanted to help her fledgling career, only for him to make increasingly vile sexual advances.
‘He was the old lady in the gingerbread house luring the kids in, missing the oven behind,’ Hast said in her opening statement.
Hast said Mann and Weinstein met at a Hollywood party in February 2013 and Weinstein appeared to take an instant liking to her. They had several follow up meetings, ostensibly to talk about her career, but things turned more and more sexual, the prosecutor said.
At one meeting, Weinstein tried to give Mann a massage, only for her to rebuff him and offer him a massage instead, Hast said. At another meeting, the prosecutor said Weinstein invited Mann to read a script in a hotel room, where he pushed her onto a bed and forcibly performed oral sex on her.
‘Realizing there was nothing she could do, [Mann] faked an orgasm, hoping that that would end it,’ Hast said
Mann, Hast said, then made ‘a decision that had disastrous consequences for her’ and decided to have a relationship with Weinstein. Hast said Mann avoided having sexual intercourse with him for about a month, when Weinstein raped her.
Hast told jurors that Mann went on to maintain some form of a relationship with Weinstein even after that, though she felt ‘trapped.’
Dawn Dunning (left) and Tarale Wulff (right) testified on Wednesday that Weinstein sexually assaulted them. They are not part of the criminal charges
The day of the alleged rape, Hast said, Mann and her actress roommate were supposed to meet Weinstein for breakfast, but instead Mann and Weinstein got into a heated confrontation that he demanded they finish in his hotel room.
There, Hast said, Weinstein started ripping the woman´s clothes off and raped her. The prosecutor said Weinstein raped the woman again in November 2013 when she was working as a hairdresser and went to cut his hair.
Weinstein has not been charged in that alleged incident.
His lawyers note that Mann’s emails continued after the second alleged rape. In February 2017, she wrote Weinstein to tell him she had a scheduling conflict and couldn’t make it to a hotel to see him.
‘I love you, always do. But I hate feeling like a booty call,’ she wrote, adding a smiling-face emoji afterward.
What’s happened in the trial so far
So far two accusers, Mimi Haleyi and Soprano’s actress Annabella Sciorra, have testified against Weinstein.
On Monday Haleyi, whose allegations are at the heart of the Weinstein case, broke down in tears as she recounted how the film honcho, who got her a job as a production assistant on the show Project Runway, allegedly forcibly performed oral sex on her while she was on her period at his New York City apartment in July 2006. She also claimed he raped her at a TriBeCa hotel two weeks afterwards.
‘I did reject him, but he insisted. Every time I tried to get off the bed, he would push me back and hold me down,’ Haleyi, 42, said choking on tears.
‘I was crying no, no. I told him I’m on my period. It was as if he didn’t believe me. I said something like where is it then? He literally pulled my tampon out,’ she added.
Haleyi (in cream trench coat) worked for Project Runway, a reality show Weinstein produced. Pictured in court on Monday
She underwent an intense cross-examination where Weinstein’s attorney Damon Cheronis claimed she had a consensual relationship with Weinstein and zeroed in on her continued contact with the producer even after the alleged assaults, showing e-mails and notes in her diary.
On Tuesday Haleyi’s roommate in 2006, Elizabeth Entin, testified to corroborate her claims. Entin said on one occasion Weinstein barged into their home to demand Haleyi go to Paris with him but got scared by her pet Chihuahua Peanut.
On Wednesday Tarale Wulff and Dawn Dunning, both so-called ‘Molineux’ witnesses, testified to demonstrate Weinstein’s ‘prior bad acts’ and pattern of pattern behavior. Weinstein’s charges do not stem from their accounts.
Tarale Wulff testified that Weinstein masturbated in front of her while she was working as a cocktail waitress at the upscale New York club Cipriani and raped her at his New York City apartment in 2005 after calling her in for an audition saying ‘Don’t worry, I’ve had a vasectomy’.
Dawn Dunning, who also met the movie mogul when trying to become an actress, said that Weinstein put his hand up her skirt during a business meeting at his hotel suite in 2004 and he offered her movie roles in exchange for a threesome, claiming, ‘This is how the industry works!’
Last week Annabella Sciorra testified that Weinstein forced his way into her Manhattan apartment one winter night in 1993 or 1994 and violently raped her.
In total six women are expected to testify against the producer, while more than 90 women have accused the Miramax founder of sexual misconduct, harassment, rape, and unwanted touching.
She broke down in tears as she recounted the alleged rape saying: ‘I was crying no, no. I told him I’m on my period. It was as if he didn’t believe me. I said something like where is it then? He literally pulled my tampon out’
Annabella Sciorra cried as she took the stand in Harvey Weinstein’s New York trial last week to tell how he allegedly raped her in 1993 or 1994. She appeared in The Sopranos as Tony Soprano’s mistress (right)
Who are Weinstein’s accusers who have or will testify?
Actress Annabella Sciorra testified last week against Weinstein, claiming he raped her in her New York City apartment in 1993.
Former production assistant Mimi Haleyi testified Monday and claimed Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her inside his apartment in 2006.
A third accuser, Jessica Mann, is slated to testify this week on how the movie mogul allegedly raped her in a Midtown Manhattan hotel in 2013.
Costume designer Dawn Dunning testified Wednesday that Weinstein sexually harassed her and tried to pressure her into having a three-way with him and his assistant when she was 24 at a Manhattan hotel in 2004.
Aspiring actress Tarale Wulff testified Wednesday that Weinstein masturbated in front of her as she was working as a cocktail waitress at Cipriani Upstairs in Manhattan and he later assaulted her in his bedroom in 2005.
A sixth woman, Lauren Young, claims he groped her in a hotel, masturbated and ejaculated onto a bathroom floor in February 2012 at a dinner event during Oscar season when she was 22.
In addition to these six accusers the judge is allowing four other women to testify to establish a pattern of behavior, even though most of their allegations are too old to prosecute as crimes according to state law.
The trial started on January 6 and could last until early March.