A key accuser at Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial returned Tuesday to the witness stand, a day after she grew to become so upset whereas being questioned by the film mogul’s attorneys that the decide suspended her cross-examination.
Subdued and sombre in her third day testifying about her advanced relationship with the once-powerful film mogul, the lady stared at jurors and mentioned, “I need the jury to know that he’s my rapist.”
The girl is predicted to be on the stand a lot of the day as Weinstein’s attorneys proceed a painstaking assessment of her emails and different communications. They are saying that proof paints the 34-year-old former aspiring actress as a manipulative liar who gritted her approach by sexual encounters with Weinstein as a result of she loved the perks of understanding him.
The girl broke down crying Monday whereas studying an electronic mail passage about being abused earlier in her life. It was a part of a prolonged confessional electronic mail she despatched to her then-boyfriend in Could 2014 about her relationship with Weinstein.
The decide adjourned court docket about an hour sooner than regular Monday as soon as it grew to become clear the lady could not proceed.
The Related Press usually doesn’t publish the names of individuals alleging sexual assault until they provide their consent. It is withholding the title of the 34-year-old lady as a result of it is not clear if she needs to be recognized publicly.
Resuming questioning on Tuesday, Weinstein lawyer Donna Rotunno revisited the lady’s electronic mail to her boyfriend, in addition to emails she despatched to Weinstein after she alleges the movie producer raped her at a New York Metropolis lodge in March 2013.
The girl alleges Weinstein raped her once more eight months later at a Beverly Hills lodge the place she labored as a hairdresser. She mentioned Weinstein attacked her after she instructed him she was courting an actor.
Among the many emails Rotunno highlighted was one the lady despatched Weinstein in 2014 about assembly up for a drink in Los Angeles.
Testifying Tuesday, she mentioned she could not keep in mind if she ended up assembly him, saying she usually made up excuses, so she did not should observe by with their plans.
In 2015, after accepting Weinstein’s invitation to an Oscar celebration, she posted on-line: “Oscar time. About to get loopy.” Requested by Rotunno if she wrote that as a result of she was enthusiastic about it, the lady responded: “Sure. The events had been enjoyable.”
At one level, Rotunno requested the lady why she would settle for favours from “your rapist.” That is when the lady turned to jurors and mentioned: “I need the jury to know that he’s my rapist.”
Weinstein, 67, is charged in New York with the 2013 rape and in addition sexually assaulting Mimi Haleyi, a former Venture Runway manufacturing assistant, in 2006. A conviction might put him behind bars for the remainder of his life.
He has insisted that any sexual encounters had been consensual.
Jury hears from one other witness
Earlier within the day, jurors heard from one other supporting witness: an actress who testified that she felt pressured into having a awkward three-way sexual encounter with Weinstein and the lady he is charged with raping.
Emanuela Postacchini was known as to testify out of order over the objections of Weinstein’s attorneys, who argued the testimony was irrelevant as a result of there is not any proof he pressured himself on both lady on that event.
Prosecutors mentioned they had been calling Postacchini earlier than resuming the rape accuser’s cross-examination as a result of she needed to go to Los Angeles for a Wednesday audition.
Postacchini testified that in February 2013, Weinstein had her meet him and the rape accuser at a Los Angeles-area lodge, the place he tried to steer the ladies to have intercourse with him.
Postacchini mentioned throughout the encounter, Weinstein’s accuser went into the toilet and was “crying within the fetal place on the bottom.”
On cross-examination, Weinstein lawyer Damon Cheronis repeatedly requested if Weinstein pressured both lady to do something and every time she responded that whereas she personally did not really feel pressured to do something, “the state of affairs was pressured.”
