Accuser likens Weinstein to ‘Jekyll and Hyde’
NEW YORK – A onetime aspiring actress told a Manhattan jury on Friday that Harvey Weinstein raped her in a hotel room while she was in an “extremely degrading” relationship with the movie producer.
The woman, Jessica Mann, said she told no one about what had happened.
“I was so embarrassed,” she said, crying on the witness stand.
Mann likened Weinstein to “Jekyll and Hyde,” saying he could be charming in public but often showed frightening anger when they were alone.
“If he heard the word ‘no,’ it was like a trigger for him,” she said.
On cross-examination, Weinstein’s lawyers suggested that Mann stayed with him to further her Hollywood career.
Weinstein, 67, has pleaded not guilty to raping Mann and to sexually assaulting another woman, Mimi Haleyi. Since 2017, more than 80 women have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct.
Weinstein, who produced films including “The English Patient” and “Shakespeare in Love,” has denied any nonconsensual sex.
The trial is widely seen as a milestone in the #Metoo movement, in which women have accused powerful men in business, entertainment, media and politics of sexual misconduct.
Mann, now 34, testified that she met Weinstein in late 2012 or early 2013 at a party in Los Angeles and that he told her he was interested in her as an actress.
Weinstein later invited her and her friend to a hotel suite in Los Angeles, Mann testified. When they arrived,
Mann said, Weinstein pulled her into a bedroom, leaving her friend outside.
There, she said, Weinstein told her to sit on the bed and performed oral sex on her. Mann said she pretended to have an orgasm so he would stop.