UPDATED 17:06: “He knew something was wrong when we were at the SAG Awards and the way Harvey was looking at me,” Jennifer Siebel Newsom told attorney Mark Werkman, a jury and spectators Monday during her testimony at Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial in Los Angeles, then-Lieutenant Governor of California Gavin Newsom, who knew about the producer’s alleged attack on her a few years earlier in 2017.
“I signaled along the way,” California’s first partner added in an often emotional, tearful and graphic testimony.
Werkman scrutinized when and how she informed Newsom of Weinstein’s alleged rape more than 17 years ago in his Peninsula Hotel suite, and Siebel Newsom sobbed several times during her time on the witness stand. The defense attorney focused on Weinstein’s political connections, who regularly donated large sums of money to several high-profile Democrats over the decades, and remained blind to the witness’s fears. “Well is it just politics that you just take money from someone who did something despicable to your wife unless everyone finds out?” Werkman said so during his interrogation this afternoon.
Siebel Newsom, identified as Jane Doe #4 in Weinstein’s West Coast trial, revealed her real name to Judge Lisa Lench in the downtown courtroom last month before testifying. Siebel Newsom, who was grilled today while the defense appealed, is expected to return Tuesday for further testimony in what could be the final days of this trial.
With Weinstein facing nearly a dozen sex-crime charges and up to 140 years in prison if convicted, sources on both sides suggested Siebel Newsom’s testimony could be pivotal in the case.
Earlier in the day, after originally returning from lunch, the witness described in vivid detail how she would meet Weinstein at the Beverly Hills Hotel when she was a young and unmarried filmmaker/actress captivated by the attention the then- tycoon gave her. “I was confused,” Siebel told Newsom when a Weinstein assistant suddenly approached her and informed her that their meeting would be in the producer’s suite. “I was a little hesitant. I expected to meet him where the noise and the buzz was and where all the talk was. I was just confused and didn’t know what to do.”
Siebel Newsom, who was shown into Weinstein’s “rich” suite by an assistant, explained how things quickly took a turn for the worse and deadly. When she was called to Weinstein’s bathroom, she found him masturbating. Defeated and admitting she found some memories of the incident “disturbing,” Assistant District Attorney witness Marlene Martinez told the court how Weinstein explained what happened to her. “He stood up and tried to tell me that he, he called different actress names, he tried to tell me that this is the industry, and in a way that threatens me.”
Weinstein allegedly dragged her into the suite’s master bedroom and began assaulting her again by inserting his fingers into her, the witness said.
“He knows it’s not normal, he knows it’s not consent,” Siebel Newsom asserted in a loud voice as Weinstein sat with his lawyers a few feet away at the defense table.
“I could tell he just needed it, he was so determined, just so scary, it was all about him and his pleasure, his need for satisfaction, so I just did it to make it stop,” Weinstein said added, who tried his “strange and confused” penis inside her and had non-consensual sex with her and then performed forced cunnilingus on her. “Oh, I just made some noises to make him come faster,” Siebel Newsom said of Weinstein, who was masturbating at the time.
“There was silence on my end,” Siebel Newsom told the court after Weinstein ejaculated. “I just remember not having words. I just wanted to get out of here, sorry for my language,” she says again, crying.
“I just remember being shocked by everything,” Siebel Newsom said of the conversation Weinstein had after she left his suite. “It was like being in the Twilight Zone just walking down that hallway, it felt like forever,” she said. “It was like an out-of-body experience. I just remember taking my car to the valet.
Siebel Newsom admitted on the witness stand that she did not go to the police after the incident, a decision she said was made in part because of a bad experience with law enforcement following the death of her sibling years earlier. She also admitted to personal and political contact with Weinstein in the years since the alleged assault — a fact the defense will no doubt continue to highlight in Tuesday’s hearing.
EARLY 12:27: “He really focused on telling me that I was special and different,” Jennifer Siebel Newsom told a jury in downtown Los Angeles on Monday about her first meeting with Harvey Weinstein.
“He was like the kingmaker, he was at the forefront of the industry,” she said at the booth of her meeting with Weinstein at the Toronto Film Festival in 2005. “I was a working actress. I’ve had small roles, guest appearances on TV shows and films, and I’ve worked on a few short films. I was in two feature films … but they were supporting roles.”
Siebel Newsom, who is expected to continue her testimony this afternoon, broke down in tears once this morning when she was asked to identify Weinstein in the courtroom at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center. With two guards in the front row of Judge Lisa Lench’s courtroom, Siebel Newsom took the witness stand as she was questioned by LA Assistant District Attorney Marlene Martinez after several other witnesses testified Monday.
After first revealing her interaction with Weinstein in late 2017, Siebel Newsom revealed through her attorney on October 10 that she was Jane Doe #4 in the imprisoned producer’s LA trial. “Like many other women, my client was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein during an alleged business meeting that turned out to be a trap,” attorney Elizabeth Fegan said in a statement. “She plans to testify at his trial to seek some justice for the survivors and as part of her life’s work to improve the lives of women.”
Siebel Newsom’s testimony comes after her husband, California Governor Gavin Newsom, once widely considered a potential candidate for the US presidency, was easily re-elected last week.
Weinstein faces a grand jury indictment on four counts of rape, four counts of forced oral copulation, one count of forcible sexual penetration, and one count of sexual assault by restraint and sexual assault in incidents involving five women in LA County from 2004 until 2013 Weinstein, 70, was involved. , was sentenced to 23 years in prison by a Manhattan jury in March 2020 for multiple sex crimes and now faces 140 years in prison on appeal if convicted in LA
In his opening admissions at the trial last month, Weinstein’s lawyer, Mark Werkman, dismissed California’s first partner, Siebel Newsom, as nothing more than “just another chick who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood.” when she didn’t have now. been married – governor. Message total. As testimony from other Jane Does and other witnesses began in the West Coast trial last month, information emerged in the press about contributions Weinstein made to Newsom’s various campaigns over the years and meetings with former filmmaker and actress Siebel. whom Newsom married in 2008 when he was mayor of San Francisco – and had her husband with Weinstein after the alleged late 2004-early 2005 assault in LA
In late October, Lench limited the defense’s ability to question Siebel Newsom about her communications with Weinstein in 2007 about her then-boyfriend Newsom’s relationship with the husband of a campaign worker. The judge also limited prosecutors’ room to ask questions about text messages Siebel Newsom had with Louisette Geiss in 2015 about Weinstein and comments about former first daughter Malia Obama’s internship at the Weinstein Co. early 2017.
Weinstein’s trial is expected to last until the end of the month before the case goes to a jury.
Writer: Dominic Patten
Source: Deadline
