UPDATED with afternoon testimony:
The Italian actress and model who testified that Harvey Weinstein stalked her to her hotel room and brazenly raped her over a bathroom sink says she was “as rich as Al Pacino” at the time, was only acting as a “hobby” and needed nothing from any Hollywood figure – a direct jab at the defense’s claim that all of the “Pulp Fiction” producer’s accusers were involved in “transactional” sex.
Jane Doe 1 says she had casually met Weinstein once before the 2013 assault at the Mr. C hotel in Beverly Hills, “barely” spoke with him that night and was confused about why he showed up at her hotel room door in the first place, demanding to be let in.
Prosecutors showed photos from the Italia Film Festival just hours before that night, including Al Pacino doing various things, including red carpet appearances. In some shots, Jane Doe 1 can be seen in the background near the “Heat” actor (who is not in any way connected to the Weinstein case). They also showed video of Weinstein giving an interview with local Los Angeles station KTLA that night.
As if to get ahead of the oncoming cross-examination, Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson asked Jane Doe 1 why she posted pictures of flowers and the caption “beautiful morning” the day after the alleged rape. She was keeping up appearances, she said – also her explanation for appearing to be smiling in the background of photos including Weinstein, Christoph Walz and Quentin Tarantino.
After a full breakdown ended Monday’s testimony, Jane Doe made it through most of Tuesday’s equally graphic recollections from the stand – until Thompson displayed photos of the bed, bedside chair, and bathroom sink involved in the attack. She became choked up as Thompson walked her through the scene.
A new Weinstein lawyer – Alan Jackson – handled the cross-examination. After some back-and-forth about discrepancies in social media posts that went nowhere, he asked Jane Doe if she was “aspiring” to a bigger acting career. She pushed back, saying it was just a “hobby” for her at the time.
“You’re the only actor in history, since the Roman days, to not want to be successful as an actor?” he asked.
Noisy objections to that question were upheld, and she wasn’t able to answer.
She said her husband is deceased, and that acting was not her primary income source, and that it wasn’t “super important” for her to be at the Italia fest. Jackson asked if it would be helpful to her career to be photographed with someone like Pacino.
That’s when Jane Doe 1 insisted she was “as rich as Al Pacino” at the time.
“Al Pacino, for me, it is, he inspired me. He’s an old school actor it is amazing to have met him and interacted with him.”
She also recalls being introduced to Weinstein in Italy in 2012 by the Italia fest head in Rome. She said Weinstein asked her to go to his room that night, despite her struggles with English – and she rejected him. At some point Jackson began trying to twist Jane Doe’s words to make it seem like her story had changed, visibly annoying at least one juror.
She said she didn’t know who Weinstein was, and didn’t catch his name. “It doesn’t matter for me at that time,” she said.
Previously on Tuesday:
Jane Doe 1, the Italian actress and model who broke down in gasps midway through her terrifying story of how Harvey Weinstein tracked her down and assaulted her at her Beverly Hills hotel room in 2013, got back on the stand Tuesday and bravely finished her testimony.
But first, she made an apology to the jury.
“I want to apologize for my breakdown yesterday,” she said. “Unfortunately I can’t control this.”
Her session was cut short Monday afternoon as she broke down in gasping sobs after telling how Weinstein showed up at her hotel room uninvited in 2013 – despite that she’d “barely” spoken with him that night and did not tell anyone where she was staying – then immediately began assaulting her against her vigorous objections. The judge called recess at 4:05 p.m., and Jane Doe 1 returned Tuesday to finish.
With Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson guiding her through questions, she said she was confused about why Weinstein was there at first – but her first inkling of fear came when he started talking about her giving him a massage.
“I feared that he misunderstood. I was feeling guilty that I said or did something that made him think something would happen,” she said.
She spoke about how his demeanor changed; they were chatting about each other’s kids one minute, and the next he was taking off his pants and lying on the bed. “I was afraid he was going to do something I didn’t want him to [do],” she said.
“I’ve been in bad situations where men beat me,” she said, speaking of the fear she was feeling. Sitting on the foot of the bed, she said Weinstein stopped talking at that point and began to grab at her.
“He was very arrogant,” she said. “He was moving me (on the bed) like [I was] an object. A box. Nothing.”
She says she tried to fight him off, but Weinstein remained calm. “He didn’t scream at me. He didn’t hit me. I was crying and saying ‘No, no, no, no, no. I was kind of hysterical … I was panicking.”
Crying, she said “I didn’t fight him, or hit him or run. I don’t know why. I regret that a lot … I didn’t have a thought to run and scream. I didn’t scream ‘Help.’”
She spoke about how Weinstein was unable to get an erection. She said he was holding her hair with one hand and his penis with the other, telling her to “suck his balls, play with his balls … But I was hysterical, it didn’t work.”
She said he then pulled her into the bathroom, pushed her up against a sink, digitally penetrated her and tried to put his penis in her vagina but “I was moving, crying, saying ‘no. Stop.’” She said she was moving from side to side to prevent him from penetrating her further.
“I wanted to die,” she said. “It was disgusting. It was humiliating.”
She described how Weinstein then pulled her up by the hair and told her to look in the mirror: “Come on, you’re not a little girl. You like it. Tell me you like it. … look how beautiful you are.”
Once it was over, she said, he “acted like nothing happened.” Then he told her not to talk to anyone about the encounter, saying “You don’t know me.”
Thompson asked Jane Doe 1 what she thought he meant by that.
“I understood he’s powerful and I better not talk because it’s dangerous for me.”
She later recalled seeing Weinstein again at a 2017 film festival event she was attending with her daughter Maria. She said the two did not interact, but she kept seeing him and wanted to get away.
“He was looking at me,” she said. “He was looking at Maria. I saw his eyes … I remembered his eyes. It was like I lived the situation again and again. I was looking directly in his eyes and I don’t know how long it was I was about to stand to … do something. I was out of my mind,” she said, adding that at that moment she went out onto a balcony to smoke.
Los Angeles prosecutors launched their case in earnest Monday with an opening statement that included detailed descriptions of the eight accusers who will testify in the criminal trial. Jane Doe 1 was the only one to give live testimony Monday.
Weinstein’s defense attorney Mark Werksman told the jury in his opening statement Monday that the encounters were either fabricated or wholly consensual, part of Hollywood’s decades-old “casting couch” culture, including the accusers who “willingly played the game by the rules that applied” before the MeToo movement of 2017.
Werksman characterized one alleged count as an “affair” Weinstein had with “aspiring actress” Jane Doe No. 4, who has publicly identified as Jennifer Siebel Newsom, now-wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Even she used sex to get something she wanted from Weinstein, Werksman argued, and continued milking their relationship for years after the alleged assault.
Weinstein faces 11 charges of sexual assault from allegations spanning from 2004-2013. The trial is expected to last into December after a two-week jury selection process seated a panel last Thursday of nine men and three women. Weinstein could face up to 140 years in prison if convicted.
He is already serving 23 years in a New York prison for criminal first-degree sexual assault and third-degree rape, a conviction he has been granted the right to appeal. Weinstein has maintained his innocence since the New York Times first published accusations against him five years ago this month.
More to come …