LOS ANGELES –
An lawyer for Harvey Weinstein peppered a girl with questions Wednesday on the shortage of forensic proof that the film magnate raped her in 2013, or that he was even on the resort the place she says the assault occurred.
“You have no bodily proof to current to this jury that any of this occurred, do you?” lawyer Alan Jackson requested pointedly throughout cross-examination.
When the decide on the 70-year-old Weinstein’s Los Angeles trial sustained an objection to the query as a result of it known as for speculation, Jackson received extra particular:
“Any photographs?”
“No,” the girl mentioned quietly.
“Any video?”
“No,” she replied, then added, “Do you assume any individual after rape makes a video?”
She started crying softly as she answered “no” to a sequence of comparable questions on whether or not she had any documentation of bruises, scrapes, cuts, or handprints on her face from Weinstein holding her down, or had been given a sexual assault examination.
“Do you’ve gotten any bodily proof that you just had been even with Mr. Weinstein?” Jackson requested.
Her crying grew louder as she answered, “I had his jacket, however I gave it away.”
The girl, a model and actor who was working in Rome, is the the primary of Weinstein’s accusers to testify on the trial and spent parts of three days on the witness stand.
Prosecutors have offered images and different proof that each Weinstein and the girl had been on the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival, which she had come to California to attend in February 2013.
But they haven’t but produced something that places Weinstein at her resort on the evening she says he compelled her to carry out oral intercourse on her mattress then raped her in her rest room.
The girl didn’t go to police till October of 2017, when ladies’s tales about Weinstein made him the central determine in the .MeToo motion.
She maintains that Weinstein left her jacket in the room and he or she gave it to resort workers, however no lost-and-found data have been found to show it.
Asked whether or not the explosion of media tales round Weinstein prompted her to go to police, the girl repeated earlier testimony that she had already determined to file a report earlier in the 12 months when she urged her teenage daughter to go to authorities over sexual harassment she’d been subjected to in school.
The girl goes solely by “Jane Doe 1” in court. Her age and birthplace have additionally been saved out of court proceedings, although she has mentioned her first language was Russian and he or she was residing on the time along with her three kids in Italy, the place she had married into appreciable wealth.
The Associated Press doesn’t sometimes title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused until they arrive ahead publicly.
Weinstein’s protection tried to poke holes in her testimony and press on inconsistencies in earlier accounts she gave to police, to prosecutors, to a grand jury, and in the primary two days of her trial testimony.
In graphic questioning, Jackson dwelt on the girl’s description in her preliminary interview with police of oral intercourse she mentioned Weinstein compelled her to carry out. Jackson prompt that Weinstein’s uncommon genital options after a surgical procedure he had years earlier made the acts she described not possible.
The similar acts went unmentioned throughout her 2020 grand jury testimony, and Jackson requested her whether or not she had discovered extra about Weinstein’s intercourse organs from prosecutors and thus modified her story.
“Never!” she mentioned adamantly.
Under questioning later from the prosecution, she described “very dangerous scarring tissue” round Weinstein’s genitals.
It was the primary time jurors heard from a witness about Weinstein’s anatomy, which arose typically in his 2020 trial in New York, the place he was convicted of rape and sexual assault and sentenced to 23 years in jail.
The girl advised prosecutor Paul Thompson that she had been having panic assaults and had hardly slept or eaten since her testimony started Monday afternoon. It lastly ended late Wednesday.
Weinstein has pleaded not responsible to 11 counts of rape and sexual assault involving 5 ladies.
When prosecutors gave their opening assertion Monday, nonetheless, they excluded one of many ladies, placing into query whether or not the 4 counts involving her might be addressed in the course of the trial.
The district lawyer’s workplace has declined to clarify when requested concerning the problem.
Weinstein’s attorneys mentioned no expenses have been dropped.
Resources for sexual assault survivors in Canada
If you or somebody you understand is scuffling with sexual assault or trauma, the next assets can be found to assist folks in disaster:
If you might be in fast hazard or worry on your security, it’s best to name 911.
A full record of sexual assault centres in Canada that provide info, advocacy and counselling may be discovered at ReeseCommunity.com. Resources in your neighborhood may be discovered by coming into your postal code.
Helplines, authorized providers and places that provide sexual assault kits in Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, Ontario and Nova Scotia may be discovered right here.
National Residential School Crisis Line: +1 866 925 4419
24-hour disaster line: 416 597 8808
Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline: +1 833 900 1010
Trans Lifeline: +1 877 330 6366
Sexual misconduct assist for present or former members of the Armed Forces: +1 844 750 1648