Summary
Mann, 40, walked into the courtroom Monday for what she described as another round of public testimony about Harvey Weinstein, the former Hollywood producer she says assaulted her in 2013. She testified for a third time as Weinstein watched from his wheelchair at the defense table and denied sexually assaulting anyone, according to testimony described by The Associated Press. Mann looked at Weinstein only when asked to point him out.
The case centers on Mann’s allegation that Weinstein raped her in a Manhattan hotel in 2013, an accusation that is being tried again because of the sequence of legal events surrounding Weinstein’s earlier conviction and subsequent retrials. Mann’s testimony, presented again in the retrial, came after Weinstein’s 2020 conviction was overturned for reasons described as unrelated to Mann’s testimony. A jury in an earlier retrial failed to reach a verdict on Mann’s case, leaving only her rape charge to be tried again, The Associated Press reported.
In her account of how the relationship began, Mann testified that she initially believed Weinstein was offering professional opportunity. She told jurors she accepted invitations that she said included discussions and events connected to cinema and the Oscars season, and that Weinstein’s attention soon shifted to intimate contact. Mann said Weinstein complimented her looks when they met and, as she described the early stages of what she says began as professional advice, she recalled Weinstein saying, “my friends go far — my enemies don’t step a foot in this town.”
Mann told jurors that after she resisted an early sexual overture, Weinstein then escalated the interaction with what she described as force. She testified that when Weinstein asked for a massage she parried by unenthusiastically giving him a back rub instead. She also testified that she and her then-roommate accompanied Weinstein to a Los Angeles-area hotel suite to review a movie script, and that Weinstein pulled her into a bedroom and began aggressively kissing her. Mann testified she told him, “whoa, whoa, whoa,” but that he told her he wouldn’t let her leave until she let him “do something,” and she said she submitted to oral sex and pretended to enjoy it. She testified that the experience left her feeling “confused and sick.”
The Associated Press reported that court ended for the day before Mann was questioned about what happened next after the oral sex encounter. In prior testimony, Mann has said she later continued a relationship with Weinstein, despite being alarmed by what she described at the start of the sexual encounter. She also described how, in the years after the encounter, she and Weinstein exchanged messages that she said showed a complicated dynamic, and Weinstein’s lawyers have sought to frame the communications as evidence that the sexual encounters were consensual.
Mann testified about a meeting she said Weinstein arranged in New York in March 2013. She previously testified that Weinstein got her alone in a hotel room, slammed the door shut when she tried to leave, and ultimately raped her, while she told him, “I don’t want to do this” and “no.” In Monday’s testimony, the retrial returned that allegation to the jury’s consideration, The Associated Press reported.
Mann also addressed the longer arc of what she says followed the initial assault, describing emails and messages that included notes such as “miss you,” that no one “understands me quite like you,” and that “I love you, always do,” while she added that she hated feeling like a “booty call.” Weinstein’s lawyers have argued that those messages show there was nothing but a caring relationship, The Associated Press reported, while Mann said she was managing what she described as a volatile man and an emotionally complicated situation.
As the retrial continues, Mann is expected to return to the witness stand Tuesday. The Associated Press reported that prosecutors and Weinstein’s new lawyers are expected to continue questioning her, including efforts to portray the relationship differently from Mann’s account. Mann previously told jurors she was ready to endure repeated testimony so that, in her words, justice and accountability could be served.
The Associated Press said it does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they agree to be named, and that Mann has agreed to be identified. In court Monday, Weinstein leaned toward his lawyers at times as Mann testified, according to the report, and he remained present during her testimony denying sexually assaulting anyone.