In another day of emotional testimony, the governor. Gavin NewsomThe wife told the jury Tuesday that the former film producer harvey weinstein he raped her and “ruined” her life in a Beverly Hills hotel room 17 years ago.
Meanwhile, the presiding judge in the case dismissed four charges Weinstein had faced involving another alleged victim, after the prosecution announced outside the jury’s presence that it would not proceed with those charges.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom — who was referred to in court only as “Jane Doe #4” but publicly identified by her attorney — was emotional when she told a downtown Los Angeles jury Tuesday that she initially brought her allegations about Weinstein to “support other women”. not be up here on the witness stand.”
On her second day on the stand, the documentary filmmaker said she didn’t think her allegations would result in charges against Weinstein because she thought he was “out of time.”
“I had everything in a box and I’ve been sharing bit by bit because this is so painful,” the governor’s wife said when asked by defense attorney Mark Werksman why she hadn’t revealed some details of the alleged attack. on The Peninsula in September 2005 when she was initially questioned by police or when she testified before the grand jury that indicted Weinstein.
When questioned about what had happened with Weinstein, the governor’s wife said she was “making some noises to get him (Weinstein) to finish” and that he had “already raped me.”
He said he felt the need to clarify and “be more detailed” has grown as the trial has approached.
“Putting it in a box was a way of keeping my sadness, my fear…so I could move on with my life,” she said.
The defense attorney suggested that she had changed her memories when she took them out of a box, and Siebel Newsom responded that Weinstein had “mugged” her.
“He ruined my life. I put it in a box and I wasn’t going to stop pursuing my entertainment career because of what happened,” he said.
He acknowledged that he subsequently communicated with Weinstein in emails, saying he was trying to “pretend” nothing had happened.
Weinstein, now 70, is charged with one count of forcible rape and forced oral copulation involving the governor’s wife.
He was indicted on 11 sex-related counts involving her and four other women, but Assistant District Attorney Paul Thompson told Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench outside the jury Tuesday that the prosecution was not he was going to proceed with four counts, two counts each of violence. rape and forced oral copulation involving “Jane Doe #5”, who had not been named in the prosecution’s initial statement. These charges were later dismissed by the judge.
In testimony mondaySiebel Newsom said she had agreed to meet Weinstein at The Peninsula in Beverly Hills, but was “confused” and “a little hesitant” when she received a message from her assistant telling her to meet him in his suite in September 2005.
She said Weinstein didn’t seem interested in talking to her about his projects, telling her he was “going to make himself more comfortable” before calling her into the hotel suite bathroom for help.
“I didn’t know there was danger,” he said. “I thought maybe he was hurt.”
She said the man she had previously described as “like the maker of kings” and “the top of the industry” was “playing himself” and “tried to get me to play him.”
“I was like frozen,” said the governor’s wife. “He was scared. This was not the reason I came here. It was like a complete manipulation of why I was there.”
She said she recalled trying to back off and being involved in a “cat and mouse thing” with Weinstein, who she said subsequently went into a “rant” about her childhood, her mother and her brother.
She told jurors that he was “making me feel like I’m powerless, like I’m trapped.”
“Once you get to the bedroom, are you still shaking?” asked Assistant District Attorney Marlene Martinez.
“100%,” the woman replied.
She testified that he began groping her breasts and groping her penis while she was standing and “resisting” against the bed, giving a graphic account of what she called the “horror” and “hell” of her encounter with Weinstein.
“I was afraid of what he was doing, putting his body on my body and hurting me,” she testified, adding that she put her hand on his penis and made some “pleasure noises” to put an end to what was happening.
She acknowledged Monday that she believed she once asked Weinstein for a campaign donation for her husband, who was mayor of San Francisco and lieutenant governor of California before being elected governor in 2018. She said she had not told Newsom at the time. what had happened with Weinstein and that her husband later returned the money.
The woman said she initially met Weinstein at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2005 and broke down in tears when asked to identify him in court.
“He is wearing a blue suit and tie, and he is staring at me,” he told the jury.
Werksman contended in his opening statement that two of the alleged victims named in the charges “just made it up” and that it was “transactional sex” for the other two women.
“You’ll see that all of these were consensual sex, or in some cases, it didn’t happen at all,” Werksman said. “Mr. Weinstein is an innocent man who is not guilty as charged in this indictment.”
Of “Jane Doe #4,” Werksman said then that she has been a leading figure in the #MeToo movement, saying that, “Otherwise, she’d be just another chump who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood.”
Weinstein began his entertainment career as a concert promoter and then, with his brother Bob, created Miramax Films, which produced a series of “iconic and award-winning films” including “Pulp Fiction,” “The English Patient,” “Good Will hunting”. ” and “Shakespeare In Love,” among others, Thompson said in the opening statement from the prosecution. The movies launched the careers of Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Quentin Tarantino and Gwyneth Paltrow, according to the prosecutor.
Weinstein’s lawyer responded that the allegations “can be directly attributed to the #MeToo movement” and said his client “became the epicenter of the #MeToo movement.”
Werksman told jurors that Weinstein’s accusers were “women who voluntarily played the game by the then-enforced rules” and now “claim they were raped and sexually assaulted.”
“He is not Brad Pitt or George Clooney. He’s not hot,” Weinstein’s lawyer said. “They had sex with him because he was powerful…”
Weinstein was extradited from New York, where he was convicted of raping an aspiring actress and a criminal sex act against a former production assistant. The state supreme court has since agreed to hear his appeal related to that case.
He remains behind bars.
The City News Service contributed to this article.
