For more than five hours, she faced the intense fire of defense cross-examination. And when one of Harvey Weinstein's lawyers asked him to send him an email sent to his ex-boyfriend, Jessica Mann broke down in tears, having, according to journalists present, having trouble breathing. After a brief pause and when she still couldn't speak, the judge decided to adjourn the hearing on Monday.
Known for her ferocity, lawyer Donna Rotunno subjected Jessica Mann to a barrage, fueled by dozens of emails written by the aspiring actress after the first rape of which she claims to have been a victim, in March 2013, in New York. Harvey Weinstein, 67, denies the charges against him and says these relationships were all agreed.
" Thank you for your kindness "
"Thank you for your unfailing support and your kindness," she said in one of these letters, dated November 2013. "No one understands me like you," she wrote in another, before mentioning in a third, the "smile" and "the magnificent eyes" of the film producer.
Pressed to explain why she had pursued her story with the producer for so long, she admitted that, after the first years, she "(had) nothing more to gain from Harvey" Weinstein, without really justifying her decision.
Already weakened by Friday's interrogation, disjointed and sometimes incoherent, his testimony was further weakened on Monday by this correspondence, which did not reveal any reservations or distance in his relationship with Harvey Weinstein. She assured that she had acted out of "fear" to avoid the "outbursts of anger" of the producer.
"A pseudo-father"
After six hours of cross-examination, Donna Rotunno carried the beating asking this 34-year-old woman to read a letter addressed to the one who was her boyfriend in 2013. She explained that Harvey Weinstein had " offered help when my parents weren't doing it. ” "I tried to make him a pseudo-father," added this young woman from a very religious peasant milieu.
"I couldn't live the life they (her parents) wanted me to live," continued the young woman, explaining that for them, the entertainment world of which she dreamed embodied "evil".
In this context, Harvey Weinstein "offered me all the validation I needed" in the entertainment world, she explained. Jessica Mann tried to hold back her tears while reading this letter and ended up cracking.
Harvey Weinstein is prosecuted for the rape of Jessica Mann in 2013 and the sexual assault of Mimi Haleyi in 2006, but not for the facts concerning three other women who testified against him in the past 10 days, including the actress Annabella Sciorra. Before the start of the trial, the defense had pointed out that Jessica Mann had maintained a relationship with Harvey Weinstein after the alleged rape and had sex with him, until 2016.
World
Assaulted in a children's room: The story of an alleged victim of Harvey Weinstein
- New York
- Rape
- Trial
- Harvey Weinstein
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