Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who has written about being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein in a Los Angeles resort within the early 2000s, might be considered one of a minimum of 5 girls scheduled to testify towards the legendary Hollywood producer as he faces trial in Los Angeles for alleged intercourse crimes dedicated on the West Coast.
Jury choice for Weinstein’s Los Angeles trial started Monday, and California’s first associate has been recognized as Jane Doe No. 4 in court docket filings, Deadline and the Los Angeles Instances reported Monday. Weinstein, 70, faces 11 counts of sexual assault stemming from allegations by 5 girls that he sexually abused them in high-end Los Angeles inns between 2004 and 2013, the Los Angeles Instances reported.
If convicted, Weinstein faces a sentence of as much as 135 years to life, prosecutors instructed the Los Angeles Instances. Weinstein, “a disgraced, debilitated shell of the pugnacious film titan he as soon as was,” is serving a 23-year sentence following his 2020 conviction for rape and felony assault in New York.
For Weinstein’s second trial in Los Angeles, his alleged accusers solely might be identified in court docket or in court docket information as both Jane Does or by their first names and final preliminary, a spokesperson for the district lawyer’s workplace instructed the Los Angeles Instances. The ladies will testify in open court docket and their faces won't be obscured, the spokesperson mentioned.
Weinstein has repeatedly denied assaulting any girls and insisted all of his encounters along with his accusers had been consensual.
Certainly one of Weinstein’s protection attorneys, Mark Werksman, instructed the Los Angeles Instances that the trial will function testimony from well-known figures, together with girls who've appeared in films or well-known advert campaigns.
Siebel Newsom is testifying to “search some measure of justice for survivors, and as a part of her life’s work to enhance the lives of ladies,” her lawyer Elizabeth Fegan mentioned in an announcement to Deadline and the Los Angeles Instances.
An extended-time documentary filmmaker, Siebel Newsom was as an actress earlier than her 2008 marriage to then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. In court docket paperwork, Jane Doe No. 4 has accused Weinstein of forcible rape that occurred someday between September 2004 and September 2005.
“Like many different girls, my consumer was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein at a purported enterprise assembly that turned out to be a lure,” Fegan instructed Deadline in an announcement this morning. “Please respect her option to not talk about this matter outdoors of the courtroom.”
Siebel Newsom additionally wrote about being assaulted by Weinstein in a 2017 essay for the Huffington Put up. The essay was printed after the New York Instances and New Yorker printed prolonged exposes about Weinstein’s decades-long historical past off allegedly raping, harassing and in any other case abusing girls in Hollywood, together with such high-profile actors as Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow.
In her essay, Siebel Newsom didn’t supply particulars concerning the alleged assault however described how Weinstein took benefit of her need to advance her profession to engineer time alone along with her.
“I used to be naïve, new to the trade, and didn’t know how you can cope with his aggressive advances — work invites with a buddy late-night at The Toronto Movie Competition, and later an invite to fulfill with him a couple of function in The Peninsula Resort, the place workers had been current after which unexpectedly disappeared like clockwork, leaving me alone with this extraordinarily highly effective and intimidating Hollywood legend,” Siebel Newsom wrote.
Greater than 90 girls have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, with the allegations going again a long time. The allegations spurred the #MeToo motion, resulting in the downfall of different highly effective males in media, enterprise and politics.
The New York Instances reported Weinstein’s trial is anticipated to last as long as eight weeks, and will overlap the Nov. 18 launch of “She Mentioned,” a $30 million drama concerning the newspaper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation that helped uncovered Weinstein’s conduct.