NEW YORK (AP) — The girl on the heart of Harvey Weinstein ‘s repeatedly retried rape case testified — for the third time — Tuesday that the previous Hollywood honcho trapped her in a New York lodge room and assaulted her, ignoring her pleas to not do something sexual.
“I stated ‘no’ again and again, and I attempted to depart,” Jessica Mann instructed jurors, sobbing. “He simply handled me like he owned me.”
Mann, 40, is a hairstylist and actor. She’s testifying six years after she first gave jurors her account of a consensual, if difficult, relationship that veered into rape.
Weinstein — the Oscar-winning film producer who turned a logo of the #MeToo motion in opposition to sexual misconduct — seemed on steadily, generally sipping water, as Mann detailed what she says he did to her in a Manhattan lodge room in 2013.
Weinstein, now a 73-year-old jail inmate, denies sexually assaulting anybody and is interesting intercourse crime convictions stemming from different girls’s accusations on two U.S. coasts. His attorneys haven’t but had their probability to query Mann at this retrial however have argued that all the things that occurred between the 2 was consensual.
He was convicted in 2020 of raping Mann, bought the conviction overturned, then noticed a jury impasse on it at a retrial final yr.
Jurors watched intently, a number of with pens poised to take notes, as Mann delivered a second day of testimony that generally introduced her to tears, because it did on the twoprior trials. At factors Tuesday, she was requested whether or not she wished a break, however she declined.
Mann met Weinstein at a Los Angeles-area social gathering round early 2013, when she had completed some appearing work however hoped for a giant break.
He expressed curiosity in her profession and adopted up with get-togethers that bounced between skilled recommendation, invitations to glitzy business occasions and advances that made Mann uncomfortable however that she didn’t refuse, in accordance with her testimony. At one level, in accordance with her testimony, she had an emotional “meltdown” that minimize off an episode involving Weinstein and one other girl.
Regardless of that misery, Mann determined to have a consensual sexual liaison with the then-married producer. She defined Tuesday that she had been taught “that is simply regular for males to form of be that means, and I simply thought that perhaps by being a in relationship with him, it could make me really feel higher.”
Typically, she stated, Weinstein was charming and made her really feel validated; different instances she felt demeaned by his discussions of sexual practices. And “if he was instructed no or one thing, it was identical to this monster aspect got here out” of a demanding man who flaunted his Hollywood affect.
Quickly after their relationship started, Weinstein shocked Mann by exhibiting up forward of a deliberate breakfast along with her and others in New York, the place she’d piggybacked on a pal’s work journey, she stated. Weinstein took a room at Mann’s lodge, although she protested on the entrance desk that they didn’t want one, in accordance with her and to a former lodge worker who testified earlier within the trial.
Mann stated that after Weinstein snapped at her to not embarrass him, she accompanied Weinstein as much as the room, hoping to kind issues out privately. However “he wasn’t listening to me; he was simply telling me to undress,” she recalled. She stated she begged, “Please don’t. I don’t wish to,” and tried twice to open the door, however the taller, heavier Weinstein slammed it shut, grabbed her wrists and held them crossed in entrance of her face.
“That was actually scary, so I keep in mind identical to form of like — simply shutting down and giving up, as a result of I had been combating and arguing. So I obeyed,” by undressing and mendacity on the mattress, she testified.
After a visit to the lavatory, Weinstein returned and raped her, she stated.
Afterward, she stated, she went downstairs with him to breakfast along with her pals, feeling shocked however not outwardly exhibiting it.
Mann instructed nobody, on the time, concerning the alleged rape. She accepted Weinstein’s invitation to increase her journey, attend a film screening and have tea with him and his daughter.
“I simply wished everybody to behave like all the things was regular,” she stated.
The Related Press doesn’t determine individuals who say they’ve been sexually assaulted, until they comply with be named, as Mann has completed.
Jennifer Peltz, The Related Press