Actress says Weinstein raped her in the ’90s
NEW YORK — “Sopranos” actress Annabella Sciorra confronted Harvey Weinstein from the witness stand Thursday, testifying that the former Hollywood studio boss overpowered and raped her and made other crude overtures that included sending her X-rated chocolates and showing up uninvited in his underwear with a bottle of baby oil in one hand and a video in the other.
In a quivering voice, Sciorra told the jury that the burly Weinstein barged into her apartment in the mid1990s, threw her on a bed and forced himself on her as she tried to fight him off by kicking and punching him.
She said that roughly a month later, she ran into him and confronted him about what happened, and he replied: “That’s what all the nice Catholic girls say.”
Then, she told the jury, Weinstein leaned toward her and added menacingly: “This remains between you and I.”
“I thought he was going to hit me right there,” Sciorra testified.
The 59-year-old actress became the first of Weinstein’s accusers to testify at his trial, where the movie mogul whose downfall gave rise to the #MeToo movement is charged with forcibly performing oral sex on former production assistant Mimi Haleyi in his New York apartment in 2006 and raping an aspiring actress in a hotel room in 2013.
Weinstein’s lawyers sought to sow doubts about Sciorra’s story, raising questions about her actions after the alleged rape and asking whether she had once described the encounter as “awkward sex,” which she denied.
Weinstein is not charged with attacking Sciorra, whose accusations date too far back to be prosecuted. Instead, she testified as one of four additional accusers prosecutors intend to put on the stand to show that the powerful Hollywood producer had a habit of preying on women.
Generally, prosecutors cannot bring up alleged crimes beyond the charges at a trial, but such evidence can be allowed if it shows a certain pattern of behavior. Five additional accusers were allowed to testify against Bill Cosby at the Pennsylvania trial that led to his 2018 conviction for sexually assaulting a woman.
Weinstein, 67, could get life in prison if convicted.
The executive behind such Oscar-winning movies as “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love” has insisted any sexual encounters were consensual.
Recounting an accusation she said she kept largely secret for decades, Sciorra testified that after raping her, Weinstein went on to try to perform oral sex on her, saying, “This is for you,” as her body “shut down.”
“It was just so disgusting,” she said. She said she started to shake: “I didn’t even know what was happening. It was like a seizure or something.”