Rosie Perez says she was told of rape
NEW YORK >> “Do the Right Thing” actress Rosie Perez testified Friday that fellow screen star Annabella Sciorra told her in the mid1990s that Harvey Weinstein had raped her but that she couldn’t go to the police because “he’d destroy me.”
Taking the stand at the former Hollywood mogul’s rape trial, Perez said her friend Sciorra had told her at some point in 1993, her voice shaking on the phone, that something had happened to her: “I think it was rape.”
Perez said she asked if Sciorra knew who had attacked her, but Sciorra wouldn’t say at the time. But months later, on another phone call from London, she said Weinstein was harassing her and she was scared, Perez said.
“I said, ‘He’s the one that raped you,’ ” and they both began crying, Perez testified.
“Please go to the police,” Perez said she told her friend. She said Sciorra responded: “I can’t — he’d destroy me.”
Sciorra told jurors on Thursday that the movie producer pushed his way into her New York apartment, pinned her on a bed and forced himself on her in 1993 or 1994. She said Perez was one of a few people she told about the encounter before coming forward publicly in 2017.
Weinstein denies ever having nonconsensual sex. His lawyers said Perez shouldn’t be allowed to testify, but Judge James Burke decided to allow it.
Defense lawyer Damon Cheronis pressed Perez on why she didn’t go to police, or to Sciorra’s home, when the actress first told her about the alleged assault.
“Because I was being respectful,” Perez said.
Weinstein, 67, the studio boss whose downfall energized 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 New York hotel room in 2013. Sciorra is among four additional accusers who are expected to testify against him as part of an effort by prosecutors to show that Weinstein made a habit of preying on women.
Weinstein, producer of such Oscar-winning movies as “Chicago” and “The King’s Speech,” could get life in prison if convicted.
Sciorra, 59, is best known for her work on “The Sopranos.” Perez, 55, was in 1989’s “Do the Right Thing” and 1993’s “Fearless,” which brought her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress.
Sciorra told the jury that she spiraled into cutting herself and drinking heavily after the alleged rape. On Friday, friend and fashion model Kara Young testified that a fidgety Sciorra “seemed a mess,” with long cuts on her legs, when the two watched the Academy Awards together in 1994.