Mel Gibson will not testify in Harvey Weinstein’s LA rape trial

Mel Gibson is not involved in the Harvey Weinstein rape case.

In Judge Lisa Lench’s courtroom in Los Angeles today, prosecutors refused to say why they decided not to testify against the Oscar winner. However, Assistant District Attorneys Paul Thompson and Marlene Martinez made it very clear that Gibson will not be moving to the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center. Prosecutors did not respond to Deadline’s request for more details about why Gibson will not testify.

Gibson had long been on the witness list in the case and was scheduled to speak in support of Jane Doe #3. In an interview last year with researchers who Passion of Christ and Oscar winner good heart The director said that when he casually mentioned Weinstein’s name to Jane Doe #3 while she was getting a massage, she became noticeably tense and upset. This “PTSD reaction,” as Gibson called it, led him to believe his friend might be able to get through the pulp fiction Manufacturer.

Court documents and subsequent testimony allege that Weinstein assaulted the massage therapist at an LA County hotel in 2010. her conversations with Gibson years later. “I told him [Weinstein] sexually abused me, but I didn’t want to go into all the details. I was ashamed and humiliated.”

Judge Lench denied a defense motion to address Gibson’s own sinister past of anti-Semitic, racist and sexist language and took the witness stand at a preliminary hearing in October. In this regard, the defense also seemed eager to highlight an alleged animosity between Gibson and Weinstein Perspectives on the Passion of Christ, A 2004 book published by the latter about the former’s successful but controversial and explicit biblical drama.

None of that matters now that Gibson is off the hook.

Indeed, based on extensive and sometimes disturbing testimony from Jane Doe #4/Jennifer Siebel Newsom and other alleged Weinstein sexual assault victims, prosecutors plan to wrap up their case tomorrow or Friday with multiple lawsuits against the former mogul. Today, as part of the final phase of this case, Louisette Geiss took the stand to tell the jury about Siebel Newsom’s discovery of her alleged rape by Weinstein in 2005. known for making famous films” with the producer at Cannes in 2007.

Building on the sobbing testimony of the now-wife of recently re-elected California Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday, producer, songwriter and former Two and a half men Actress Geiss was put on trial by attorney Mark Werksman when she discovered Weinstein’s alleged rape in 2017 and what she told the LAPD about the matter in a 2020 Zoom interview. “I hate to say it, but I think it’s just plausible that this happened to her more than once with multiple people,” Geiss said in the transcript about Siebel Newsom during that call with police.

Geiss, who described her own encounter at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival with a masturbating Weinstein in 2017, will return to the stand Thursday for another cross-examination by the defense. Following defense protests by Werksman while his client Weinstein looked on, Judge Lench also ruled today that prosecutors were allowed to amend their case regarding Jane Doe #4 based on the parameters of the statute of limitations and Weinstein’s residency.

The defense has set November 28 as the start of their side of the case and hopes it will only be a few days before they proceed to closing arguments. On November 15, prosecutors dropped four charges in the Jane Doe #5 case. That means Weinstein, 70, who is currently serving a 23-year sentence for his 2020 sex crimes conviction in New York, now faces two counts of rape and five counts of assault in the West Coat case.

Weinstein is appealing his East Coast conviction and could face 60 years to life if convicted on the seven remaining charges here in LA