Former film producer Harvey Weinstein Weinstein faces 11 total counts of rape and sexual assault at the Los Angeles trial. Photo: Reuters
A model and actress said Tuesday (Oct 24) that Harvey Weinstein grabbed her by the hair and forced her to perform oral sex during a ruthless 2013 assault before attempting to rape her in a hotel bathroom.
The woman, identified only as Jane Doe 1, was the first of eight accusers expected to testify at the disgraced Hollywood mogul’s rape and sexual assault trial in Los Angeles, which began earlier this month.
The first woman to speak said Weinstein showed up uninvited to her hotel room in Beverly Hills in 2013 while she was in town for a film festival. Her first language is Russian, and she said her English was subpar at the time.
The accuser said she worried she “did something or said something that made him think something could happen between us.”
She testified that shortly after Weinstein entered the hotel room, he became aggressive and demanded oral sex, forcing her to perform it on the bed.
“I was kind of hysterical through tears,” the woman said on the stand. “I kept saying, ‘No, no no.’”
She said that Weinstein then took her into the bathroom and attempted to rape her, but she kept moving around to avoid him. Asked by prosecutor Paul Thompson why she didn’t fight back, the woman was at a loss.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I regret this a lot.”
The woman also said that Weinstein’s assault sent her life into a tailspin and that she began drinking heavily the very next day.
“I was destroying myself,” she said. “I was feeling very guilty. Most of all because I opened that door.”
Weinstein faces 11 total counts of rape and sexual assault at the Los Angeles trial.
The 70-year-old is currently serving 23 years in prison after he was convicted on similar charges in New York.
The woman who testified Tuesday said that she confided in her priest about the assault years ago, though he refused to testify, citing religious privilege. – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
