Jessica Mann returned to a Manhattan witness stand Tuesday, again accusing Harvey Weinstein of raping her in a Midtown hotel room in 2013. Now 40, the actor is testifying against Weinstein, 74, for a third time after his 2020 rape conviction was tossed and a second trial last year ended in a jury deadlocked on her charge. As the former producer watched and reacted from the defense table, at times shaking his head, Mann described meeting Weinstein in Los Angeles in her late 20s, saying their relationship evolved into a complicated four-year entanglement that included what she says were both consensual encounters and coercive ones, per the New York Times. He could be charming, but had a “monster side,” she said, per the AP.
On the day in question, Mann tearfully testified, Weinstein insisted on getting a hotel room before a planned breakfast with friends, then injected his penis with medication and raped her despite her repeated refusals and efforts to leave. “He was just treating me like he owned me,” she said. She said she told no one until 2017, blaming herself and fearing his influence. “‘My friends go far; my enemies don’t step foot in this town,'” she recalled him telling her. Her account “closely resembled her past testimony,” per the Times. Weinstein’s lawyers have portrayed the sexual relationship as entirely consensual, arguing Mann benefited from Weinstein’s connections and later told him she would always love him, before turning on him after other women made claims against him, per the AP.
