He got on top and raped me, says Sopranos actress
Tearful star tells jury she fought Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein as he pinned her down for sex
ANNABELLA SCIORRA, the actress who played Gloria Trillo in The Sopranos, told a jury of her desperate attempts to fight off Harvey Weinstein, punching and kicking him as he allegedly pinned her down and raped her on her own bed.
Sciorra, 59, wiped away tears as she recounted the night about 27 years ago when Weinstein barged into her apartment, having dropped her off at the front door a short while earlier.
“I thought it was the doorman or a neighbour,” she told New York State Supreme Court. “He pushed the door open. He started to walk around. I think he was seeing if there was someone there. He started to unbutton his shirt so I realised he thought we’d have sex. And I did not want to.
“I started to back up, thinking I could make it to my bathroom and get in there.”
She claimed that Weinstein then “lunged” at her, grabbing at her white cotton nightgown – a vintage, sentimental garment, given to her by her cousin in Italy.
“He shoved me on the bed. I was punching him, kicking him, just trying to get him away from me,” she said.
“I put my hands over my head to hold him back. He got on top of me and he raped me. I was trying to fight, but I couldn’t fight any more as he had my hands locked.”
She claimed that after the alleged assault her body began trembling uncontrollably. “It was so disgusting my body started to shake, which was unusual. I didn’t know what was happening. It was like a seizure or something.
“I don’t remember much. I woke up. I don’t know if I fainted or fell asleep or blacked out. I woke up on the floor with my nightgown pulled up.”
Weinstein, 67, listened impassively, occasionally taking notes. He had entered court, leaning on his PR adviser, with another aide following behind carrying a new orthopaedic walking frame.
Sciorra, in a navy blue dress, struggled to keep her composure as she testified, looking up frequently at the ceiling to compose her thoughts, taking deep breaths.
Around two to six weeks after the alleged attack in her apartment, she saw Weinstein in a restaurant.
“I confronted him about what happened in my apartment,” she said. “And I told him how I woke up, that I blacked out, fainted.
“And he said that’s what all the nice Catholic girls say. He leant into me and said this remains between us. He was very menacing. I thought he was going to hit me. I was afraid of him.”
The Brooklyn-born actress told the seven men and five women of the jury, listening intently, how she had begun drinking heavily after the incident and had become reclusive.
“I don’t remember much, except for feeling disgusting,” she said, recounting how the alleged attack even led her to self-harm.
Joan Illuzzi-orbon, prosecuting, asked Sciorra why she never told anyone what had happened to her.
“I wanted to pretend it never happened. I wanted to get back to my life,” she said.
“Why didn’t you call the police?” asked Ms Illuzzi-orbon.
“Because he was someone I knew,” she said. “I would say I felt, at the time, that rape was something that happened in a dark alleyway, with someone you didn’t know.”
Cross-examining her, Donna Rotunno, Weinstein’s lead lawyer, said to Sciorra: “You are a professional actress, correct? Part of your job is to pretend to be someone you are not.” She then asked how long the entire alleged assault lasted.
“I don’t know,” Sciorra replied.
“Time stood still.”
Sciorra also recounted her flight from Weinstein in 1994, in London, when he arrived at her hotel door and Matthew Vaughn, 48, the British film producer, director and screenwriter, helped her move hotels to evade him.
Sciorra’s testimony falls outside the statute of limitations but is being used by the prosecution to bolster the case of their two accusers, Mimi Haleyi, a former production assistant, and Jessica Mann, the actress.
Weinstein has always insisted sex was consensual. If convicted after the trial, which is expected to run until March, Weinstein could face life in prison.
‘He was someone I knew. I felt that rape was something that happened in a dark alleyway with someone you didn’t know’