USA TODAY US Edition

‘Sopranos’ actress Sciorra details alleged Weinstein rape

- Patrick Ryan and Maria Puente

NEW YORK – The first accuser to take the stand in Harvey Weinstein’s sex crimes trial, “Sopranos” actress Annabella Sciorra, choked up Thursday as she said Weinstein raped her in her New York apartment in the winter of 1993-94 and told her in a “threatenin­g” way not to tell anyone.

After a morning of questionin­g by the prosecutio­n, cross-examinatio­n of Sciorra by Weinstein’s lead defense attorney, Donna Rotunno, began.

Sciorra, 59, had trouble speaking when she described what happened in her Gramercy Park apartment one night after dinner with a group including movie producer Weinstein. She said Weinstein offered to drop her off at her apartment. She prepared for bed, then heard a knock on the door. “(Weinstein) was there and pushed the door open, so I didn’t have an opportunit­y to know why he was there,” she said. “Then he started to unbutton his shirt, and then I realized that in his head, he wanted to have sex, and I didn’t want to.”

She said he shoved her on the bed. “I was punching him, I was kicking him, I was trying to get him away from me,” she said. “He got on top of me, and he raped me.” She described her disgust and how her body began to shake “like a seizure or something.”

She said Weinstein got up and walked out. “I’m not sure if I fainted or fell asleep or blacked out, but I woke up on the floor with my nightgown kind of up, and I didn’t know if something else had happened,” she said. She said she was not drunk that night, nor had she taken Valium or any other drug.

“Afterwards, I wanted to pretend it never happened. Because I wanted to get back to my life,” Sciorra said, choking up again. She didn’t call the police, she said, because she didn’t know if what happened was a crime.

She said she confronted Weinstein at a restaurant two to six weeks later.

“I tried to talk to him about what happened, and I told him how I woke up and that I’d blacked out, and he said, ‘That’s what all the nice Catholic girls say,’ ” she said.

“And then he leaned into me and said, ‘This remains between you and I.’ ... I thought he was going to hit me right there. It was threatenin­g, and I was afraid,” she said.

On cross-examinatio­n, Rotunno asked Sciorra if she made a complaint to the condo or building board for letting Weinstein in.

“No, I was devastated,” Sciorra responded. Nor did she go to the police, a doctor or a hospital, she said. “I didn’t understand that was rape,” she said.

“You were 33 years old,” Rotunno said.

Weinstein is not charged with a crime in connection with Sciorra’s allegation, because it’s too old to prosecute under the statute of limitation­s. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office offered her testimony to bolster the “predatory” charges against Weinstein, which could increase prison time if he’s convicted.

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