NEW YORK (AP) — The woman at the center of Harvey Weinstein’s repeatedly retried rape case testified — for the third time — Tuesday that the former Hollywood honcho trapped her in a New York hotel room and assaulted her, ignoring her pleas not to do anything sexual.
“I said ‘no’ over and over, and I tried to leave,” Jessica Mann told jurors, sobbing. “He just treated me like he owned me.”
Mann, 40, is a hairstylist and actor. She’s testifying six years after she first gave jurors her account of a consensual, if complicated, relationship that veered into rape.
Weinstein — the Oscar-winning movie producer who became a symbol of the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct — looked on steadily, sometimes sipping water, as Mann detailed what she says he did to her in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013.
Weinstein, now a 73-year-old prison inmate, denies sexually assaulting anyone and is appealing sex crime convictions stemming from other women’s accusations on two U.S. coasts. His attorneys haven’t yet had their chance to question Mann at this retrial but have argued that everything that happened between the two was consensual.
He was convicted in 2020 of raping Mann, got the conviction overturned, then saw a jury deadlock on it at a retrial last year.
Testimony laced with tears
Jurors watched intently, several with pens poised to take notes, as Mann went through a second day of testimony that sometimes brought her to tears, as it did at the twoprior trials. After she declined a couple of times to take a break, the court called one when she got flustered during questions about interactions with Weinstein after the alleged rape.
Mann met Weinstein at a Los Angeles-area party around early 2013. She had done some acting work but was hoping for a big break.
Their subsequent get-togethers bounced between professional advice, invites to glitzy industry events and advances that Mann said made her uncomfortable but that she didn’t refuse, though she had an emotional “meltdown” during an episode involving Weinstein and another woman.
Still, Mann decided to have a consensual sexual liaison with the then-married producer.
She explained Tuesday that she had been taught to expect such behavior from men and thought she might feel better about it if she was in a relationship with Weinstein.
Sometimes, she said, the then-studio boss was charming and made her feel validated; other times she felt demeaned by his discussions of sexual practices. And “if he was told no or something, it was just like this monster side came out” of a demanding man who flaunted his Hollywood influence.
Soon after their relationship began, Weinstein surprised Mann by showing up ahead of a planned breakfast with her and others in New York, where she’d piggybacked on a pal’s work trip, she said. To Mann’s dismay, Weinstein took a room at her hotel, according to her and to a former front desk employee who testified earlier.
Mann recalls ‘just shutting down’
Mann said she accompanied Weinstein to the room to sort things out privately. But he barked at her to undress, she recalled. She said she begged, “Please don’t. I don’t want to,” and tried twice to open the door, but the taller, heavier Weinstein slammed it shut, grabbed her wrists and held them crossed in front of her face.
“That was really scary, so I remember just like kind of like — just shutting down and giving up, because I had been fighting and arguing. So I obeyed,” by undressing and lying on the bed, she testified.
After a trip to the bathroom, where Mann said she later found a used syringe for an erectile-dysfunction drug, Weinstein returned and raped her, she said.
Mann told no one at the time. She went through with the planned breakfast, accepted Weinstein’s invitation to extend her trip, attend a movie screening and have tea with him and his daughter.
“I just wanted everyone to act like everything was normal,” she said.
She continued consensual sexual encounters and friendly email exchanges with Weinstein. He helped the financially struggling Mann get hired at a hair salon, though she declined an envelope from him that she believed contained $1,000 in cash: “It felt wrong,” she told jurors.
But after Mann began dating someone she loved, she sought to stop sexual contact with Weinstein, emailing him that she needed to “respect the relationship.”
His reply message was cordial. But in person, Weinstein became enraged on learning her then-boyfriend was an actor, according to Mann.
“You owe me one more time!” Weinstein shouted before raping her again in a hotel in Beverly Hills, California, she told jurors, as she has before.
He never has been charged with any crime related to that allegation.
The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted, unless they agree to be named, as Mann has done.