Producer and writer Paul Feldsher, the first witness called by Harvey Weinstein’s defense team, said he was friends with accuser Annabella Sciorra in the early ’90s and still considers her a friend — but in a series of text messages sent to Weinstein since 2017, he called Sciorra “full of s—.”
Sciorra, the first accuser the prosecution called to testify in Weinstein’s trial, said that the then-mogul raped her in her Gramercy Park apartment around 1993
But as the defense’s first witness, Feldsher testified that Sciorra once told him that “she’d done this crazy thing with Harvey.” Feldsher said he did not remember her being distressed or upset when telling him that hat and did not remember if she shared any more details about the “crazy thing” that occurred.
Feldsher also testified that he thought Weinstein had a “sex addiction” but did not believe Weinstein was “capable of the things that he’d been charged with.”
During the prosecution’s cross-examination of Feldsher, Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi pulled out pages of incendiary text messages sent from Feldsher to Weinstein.
In 2017, around the time the investigations into Weinstein became public, Feldsher admitted that he was in contact with Weinstein because he “felt badly” for the disgraced mogul.
“I feel badly that he was completely abandoned. I felt badly that it was very difficult for him to be the recipient of due process,” Feldsher said. “I was speaking to him partially because nobody else was.”
In another text message, read out loud by Illuzzi, Feldsher told Weinstein that if any of the women had been his daughter, Feldsher would have wanted to “beat the s—” out of Weinstein.
But on the stand, Feldsher said he didn’t believe Weinstein was “capable of the things that he’d been charged with,” despite the fact he thought Weinstein had a “sex addiction.”
When questioned why Feldsher would also proceed to insult Sciorra, whom he said earlier during his testimony was a “friend,” by calling her an “a–hole” and “full of s—” to Weinstein, Illuzzi asked the witness if he was simply messaging Weinstein what he “wanted to hear.”
“Yes,” the witness said.
“And that’s what you’re doing today, aren’t you sir? Aren’t you, sir, saying things in this room that you think Harvey Weinstein wants to hear?” Illuzzi asked.
“Categorically no,” the witness responded.
“Didn’t you say, sir, ‘I think the dogpile of actresses that are suddenly recalling repressed memories is hideous’?” Illuzzi also asked him, reading from his texts.
“I did,” Feldsher responded. “I stand by every text that I wrote.”
The prosecution rested its case on Thursday morning, allowing for Weinstein’s defense to begin presenting witnesses for its case by the afternoon. Director Warren Leight, who worked with Sciorra on “The Night We Never Met,” is also expected to testify for the defense on Friday.