The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘It feels like the clouds have lifted’
Weinstein accuser and ‘Melissa’s Law’ namesake celebrates verdicts
STAMFORD — Stamford resident Melissa Thompson paid particular interest to the trial of fallen movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. When a jury this week found him guilty of first-degree criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape, she felt what she described as a tremendous weight rise from her shoulders.
“It feels like the clouds have lifted,” the single mother of one child said in an interview following the decision.
Thompson, 36, is part of a federal class action lawsuit against Weinstein. She accuses the now-jailed movie producer of raping her in a New York City hotel in 2011.
“All of us have felt gaslit for so long,” Thompson said of the dozens of women who have accused Weinstein of sexually violating them. “I have been hacked, trolled, smeared, followed, investigated and I have read things about myself that are patently untrue.
“And all along I’m trying to explain myself, and I don’t feel like I have to do that as much anymore because he was convicted by a jury of my peers.”
Thompson, a Long Island native who now lives in a Stamford apartment with her 4-year-old daughter, said she hopes people realize that victim blaming and shaming and discrediting are not going to be
acceptable any more.
A breast cancer survivor, Thompson worked with state Rep. Matthew Lesser, D-Middletown, in 2017 to pass a law requiring health insurance coverage for patients who wish to preserve their sperm or eggs following a cancer diagnosis. The legislation is now known as Melissa’s Law for Fertility Preservation.
Thompson, who graduated from Columbia Business School with an MBA, was 28 in September 2011 and working at a tech startup when she agreed to meet Weinstein at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in New York, according to her federal lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York.
Thompson said Weinstein led her to believe he was ready to make a purchase of her firm’s video platform product, so she agreed to meet him and a marketing director to close the deal. Instead, according to her lawsuit, Weinstein showed up alone and led her into a hotel room. There, according to the lawsuit, he raped her. Thompson filed the suit against Weinstein in 2018.
Weinstein’s current criminal defense attorney, Elior Shiloh, did not immediately return calls for comment.
Thompson in the lawsuit maintains she did not go to police because she was fearful of Weinstein. Her lawsuit describes the psychological turmoil she experienced for years following the alleged rape.
“I was such a pawn in a game he was well practiced in,” Thompson said. But Monday’s verdicts against Weinstein brings her some hope for the next generation.
“My daughter is four and I don’t want her to know this world and when she is in a business meeting I want her to be more attuned to things that I was not,” she said. “This is the first step in moving that forward, to make a difference for our children and to give someone the ability to speak up and make sure that their voice matters and one will be taken seriously and behavior like this is unacceptable.”