The main lines are drawn. At the opening of Harvey Weinstein's trial on Wednesday, the prosecutor painted a portrait of a "sexual predator" and a "rapist" who left his victims "broken". The lawyers of the deposed producer, them, assured that they had emails and SMS proving that he had had "romantic and consensual" relations with women who hoped to take off their career. Harvey Weinstein, accused of rape and sexual assault by two women, faces the risk of life at the age of 67.
On Wednesday, the identity of the woman who accuses the rape producer was revealed. This is Jessica Mann, an ex-apprentice actress, who arrived in Los Angeles in 2013 at the age of 25. Four other accusers will be able to testify on prescribed facts. The best known is actress Annabella Sciorra ( Les Soprano ), who claims to have been raped by Harvey Weinstein in 1993. The others are Dawn Dunning, Tarale Wulff and Lauren Young, three young women who tried to break into actresses or models, and who accuse the producer of acts ranging from touching to rape. This approach of using "bad prior acts" had been at the heart of the Bill Cosby trial.
"He left her physically broken, unconscious on the floor"
In a tie and dark suit, the ex-Hollywood tycoon, catalyst of the #MeToo movement, listened while shaking his head or passing notes to his lawyers, while prosecutor Meghan Hast described him as a bully who raped, humiliated and traumatized women for years.
"It will be clear during the trial that the accused knew he was targeting naive and defenseless (women)," she said. “They didn't know he was lying to lure them. They believed their careers were finally taking off. He was like the old lady of the gingerbread house who attracts small children to her home, "said the prosecutor in front of a packed courtroom with several dozen journalists.
She described, often in very crude terms, the acts that Harvey Weinstein allegedly subjected these six women. According to her, the producer took Annabella Sciorra home, returned by "force" before raping her "brutally", leaving her "emotionally and physically broken, unconscious on the floor". Jessica Mann was treated "like a rag doll". Harvey Weinstein is said to have injected himself into the penis to get an erection. At less than 47 kg, she "did not make the weight" against the 135 kg of Harvey Weinstein, insisted the prosecutor.
Defense relies on emails and SMS
The facts "will not show that Harvey Weinstein was a predator, on the contrary", assured one of his lawyers, Damon Cheronis, in his oral argument. According to him, the defense has hundreds of emails showing that Jessica Mann and the producer had "a love relationship", the young woman writing to her in 2017 "still love him". He also suggested that Annabella Sciorra had authorized Harvey Weinstein to come to his apartment, and that he did not initially believe that she had been raped. He promised to highlight the "inconsistencies" of the other testimony, stating in particular that no bathroom in California can be locked from the outside as claimed by one of the accusers.
The prosecutor has hinted at her strategy: according to her, it was about relationships "under the influence of fear", with young women "terrified" in the face of the "omnipotence" of the Hollywood producer. The first witness, Lance Maerov, ex-member of the board of directors of the studio The Weinstein Company, told that the producer often putting forward his relation with Bill Clinton, and showed in private a personality "diametrically opposite" of the man charming that he was in public. "You don't like Mr. Weinstein, do you?" Re-launched Chief Defense Counsel Donna Rotunno. "Not particularly," replied the witness. The hearing is expected to last until March 6.
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