LOS ANGELES — The worlds of politics and Hollywood collided Monday in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom as the rape trial of Harvey Weinstein began.
A prosecutor from the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office launched into an opening statement with an account of how Weinstein allegedly raped Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wife, who worked as an actress in the early 2000s.
Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson showed jurors photos of Siebel Newsom and the governor to contrast her potent role today in California politics to the “powerless actor trying to make her way in Hollywood” he said she was at the time of the alleged assault in a Beverly Hills hotel room.
Over a blistering 90 minutes, Thompson also showed pictures of other young women who accuse Weinstein of assaulting them, while reading aloud statements from them about how they had begged Weinstein to stop his alleged attacks and how afterward they felt powerless to challenge the onetime “king” of Hollywood.
“I was scared that if I didn’t play nice something could happen in the room or out of the room because of his power in the industry,” one woman said, according to Thompson.
Weinstein, 70, has been indicted on 11 counts of rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual battery in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills — charges that stem from alleged assaults on women between 2004 and 2013. If convicted, Weinstein faces a de facto life sentence in California. He is serving a 23-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2020 in New York of other rapes and assaults.
At the Los Angeles trial, which is expected to last several weeks, the women whose allegations form the basis of the charges against Weinstein will testify as “Jane Does.” Another group of women who are expected to testify about “prior bad acts” will be identified in court by their first name and last initial.
While the Los Angeles Times typically does not name victims of alleged sexual violence, Siebel Newsom and some of the women testifying against Weinstein have accused him publicly.
Weinstein has been accused by more than 80 women since 2017, when investigations by The New York Times and The New Yorker brought his alleged abuses into the public eye and made Weinstein a central antagonist of the #MeToo movement. He has denied all wrongdoing.
According to court records, Siebel Newsom will testify that Weinstein assaulted her sometime between September 2004 and 2005. She previously described the assault in a 2017 Huffington Post essay.
An introduction at the Toronto International Film Festival led to another meeting in Beverly Hills, Thompson told jurors. Weinstein had said he wanted to “discuss her career” and, when the Miramax co-founder showed up to a meeting with several assistants in tow, she believed him.
But the others quickly left, leaving Siebel Newsom alone with Weinstein, Thompson said. They spoke for a while about business, but then Weinstein disappeared to the bathroom and asked her to follow. Siebel Newsom found Weinstein in a bathrobe, Thompson said.
Weinstein made a sexual overture, but Siebel Newsom quickly declined, according to the prosecutor. Weinstein then began talking about top-flight actresses whose careers he had launched in a tone that “moved from pleading to aggressive to demanding,” Thompson said.
Then, Weinstein shoved her onto a bed.
“She couldn’t get any words out because of her fear,” said Thompson, who alleged that Weinstein forced himself on Siebel Newsom orally before raping her.
As with his accusers in the New York trial, Thompson told jurors that many of the women in this trial maintained relationships with Weinstein after the alleged attacks because of his influence in Hollywood and on the political stage.
At one point, Thompson flashed a picture of Weinstein laughing alongside Hillary Rodham Clinton and noted he had pull “with presidential contenders.” Many of the women feared Weinstein “could crush their careers if they reported what he had done to him.”
It is unclear what role, if any, the governor will play in the trial. He and his wife began dating after the alleged assault in 2006, but Weinstein’s defense team asked potential jurors last week about their feelings on the governor. Weinstein’s attorneys also want to be able to cross-examine Siebel Newsom about how she sought political donations from Weinstein, who was once a high-profile fundraiser for the Democratic Party.
The actor and director Mel Gibson is also expected to testify at the trial. Prosecutors say a woman identified as Jane Doe No. 3, who alleges Weinstein abused her in May 2010, described the assault to Gibson while giving the actor a massage.
Thompson said Monday that the victim is a professional masseuse whose clients included several celebrities and athletes. But after giving Weinstein a massage in a hotel suite, he allegedly followed her into the bathroom, groped her breasts and masturbated.
When the woman protested, Weinstein responded it was “completely normal, he’d done it with so many people,” according to Thompson.
Weinstein offered a book deal to Jane Doe No. 3 after the assault, according to Thompson, who said she agreed to future consensual encounters with the mogul as a result. At one point, Thompson said, a future employer of Jane Doe No. 3 asked her to help him arrange a meeting with Weinstein.
“It’s going to cost you,” Weinstein said, and later ordered Jane Doe No. 3 to watch him masturbate, according to Thompson.
Mark Werksman, Weinstein’s defense attorney, last week claimed Gibson was a biased witness against Weinstein, who is Jewish, because of a highly publicized antisemitic tirade the actor went on after a drunken driving arrest. Werksman also claimed the two men have been longtime enemies after a publishing imprint owned by Weinstein released a book critical of Gibson’s film “The Passion of the Christ.”
Prosecutors also plan to call Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, a Filipina Italian model whose accusations against Weinstein in 2015 led to his arrest by New York City police and played a critical role in a New Yorker article that, in part, sparked Weinstein’s downfall. Manhattan prosecutors ultimately did not charge Weinstein for the alleged assault.
Battilana Gutierrez will testify that in 2015, Weinstein allegedly groped her during a meeting to discuss her career at the New York City offices of his eponymous company.
While the 11 criminal counts against Weinstein were based on the allegations of five women, Thompson made no mention to jurors of Jane Doe No. 5 on Monday, raising the prospect that she perhaps has decided not to testify.
Four of the 11 counts against Weinstein stem from allegations made by Jane Doe No. 5, court records show.
Jane Doe No. 1 is an Italian model who previously spoke to the L.A. Times on the condition of anonymity, accusing Weinstein of barging into her Beverly Hills hotel room after a 2013 film festival, according to her attorney, David Ring.
The woman accused Weinstein of bragging about his influence in the film industry while demanding sexual favors from her. She begged him to leave and showed him pictures of her children, but Weinstein did not relent, she said.
“He grabbed me by the hair and forced me to do something I did not want to do,” she told the L.A. Times in 2017. “He then dragged me to the bathroom and forcibly raped me.”
Lauren Young — who testified during Weinstein’s New York trial and is identified as Jane Doe No. 2 in Los Angeles court documents — accused the former mogul of groping her while masturbating in a Beverly Hills hotel. Young was 23 at the time and said a mutual friend arranged a meeting so she could pitch Weinstein a script. He asked her to finish the conversation in his hotel room, where the alleged assault occurred, she alleges.
In total, the prosecution is expected to call roughly 50 witnesses.
Werksman was scheduled to make an opening statement Monday afternoon. The defense has not offered any preview of its case, and it is unclear if Weinstein will take the stand. He did not testify in New York.
