LOS ANGELES (AP) — Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and actor who’s married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, is likely one of the accusers of Harvey Weinstein who will testify at his rape and sexual attack trial that started Monday, her lawyer mentioned.
“Like many different girls, my consumer was once sexually assaulted by means of Harvey Weinstein at a purported industry assembly that became out to be a lure,” Newsom’s lawyer Elizabeth Fegan mentioned in a observation. “She intends to testify at his trial to be able to search some measure of justice for survivors, and as a part of her lifestyles’s paintings to enhance the lives of girls.”
Weinstein, the 70-year-old former film magnate who’s serving a 23-year jail sentence after a conviction in New York, has pleaded no longer in charge to 11 counts of rape and sexual attack involving Newsom and 4 different girls. They all will testify as Jane Doe all the way through the eight-week trial in a Los Angeles court docket, the place jury variety started Monday.
The Related Press does no longer usually title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused, however Newsom agreed to be named thru her lawyer.
The inside track of her involvement was once first reported by means of The Los Angeles Occasions.
Newsom, 48, seemed in small roles in dozens of movies and tv presentations between 2002 and 2011. Not too long ago she has directed documentaries together with “The Nice American Lie” in 2020 and “Truthful Play” from this yr. Each take care of gender in society.
She wrote about her revel in with Weinstein in a 2017 essay within the Huffington Submit after the New York Occasions and New Yorker tales made him a magnet of the #MeToo motion, however gave few main points.
Weinstein, who’s being held in a Los Angeles County prison, was once introduced Monday into court docket in a wheelchair thru an aspect door, and climbed from it moderately right into a seat subsequent to considered one of his legal professionals on the protection desk. He was once dressed in a blue swimsuit, which he’s allowed to grow to be from his prison apparel all the way through the trial.
He stood with the remainder of the room as the primary panel of 67 potential jurors had been introduced in, however sat down about midway throughout the procedure. He waved at them from his seat when his legal professionals offered them.
The jurors got a long questionnaire meant to display out those that wish to be pushed aside. Each the questions and solutions at the bureaucracy are non-public, however earlier hearings on its contents printed that it accommodates questions about how a lot media protection of Weinstein they’ve observed, and whether or not they’ve shaped evaluations from it, although the pass judgement on rejected questions about particular tales and media shops.
The prosecution can be allowed to introduce as proof portions of Weinstein’s conviction for rape and sexual attack, the place the state’s best court docket has agreed to listen to his enchantment.
The questionnaire additionally features a query a few California regulation that claims the testimony on my own of a sexual attack sufferer may also be enough proof to convict if a juror believes them.
The jurors had been additionally given an extended record of names of witnesses within the coming trial, together with the ones of the accusers to resolve whether or not they’ve any connection to them. The preliminary witness record within the case had greater than 270 names, although fewer than part which might be anticipated. Lots of the potential witness record has no longer been made public.
One witness, Barbara Schneeweiss, a manufacturer on “Mission Runway” and different tv presentations, was once found in court docket early Monday and was once informed by means of a pass judgement on she was once on name to come back in at any time.
Two extra panels of as much as 75 jurors can be introduced in Tuesday and Wednesday. Wondering of person jurors isn’t anticipated to start till subsequent week, and opening statements would possibly not start for 2 weeks.
The trial comes 5 years after girls’s tales about Weinstein made the #MeToo motion explode.
Weinstein is charged with 4 counts of rape and 7 different sexual attack counts.
Lots of the incidents in his indictment, like Newsom’s, came about underneath the guise of commercial conferences at luxurious accommodations in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles, which Weinstein used as his California headquarters and the place he may well be observed all the way through awards season and all through the yr. 4 of them took place all the way through Oscars week 2013, when Weinstein releases “Silver Linings Playbook” and “Django Unchained” would win Academy Awards.
Observe AP Leisure Author Andrew Dalton on Twitter: twitter.com/andyjamesdalton
