Movies

California Governor’s Wife to Testify in 2005 Alleged Rape – Deadline

October 10, 2022

Jury selection for Harvey Weinstein’s long-delayed West Coast sex crimes trial begins today, and California’s first partner is expected to be among the alleged victims to testify.

Identified as Jane Doe #4 in court documents, Jennifer Siebel Newsom will speak in the courtroom of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench for the next 10 weeks.

“Like many other women, my client was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein during an alleged business meeting that turned out to be a trap,” Siebel Newsom’s attorney, Elizabeth Fegan, told Deadline. in a statement this morning. “She intends to testify at her trial to seek justice for survivors and as part of her life’s work to improve the lives of women,” said founding partner of FeganScott, who represented Weinstein’s other victims in a now-settled civil case. trial, added. “Please respect his choice not to discuss this matter outside of the courtroom.”

Weinstein is charged with a forcible rape of Jennifer Siebel in Los Angeles County between September 2004 and September 2005, according to court documents.

Representatives for Harvey Weinstein could not be reached for comment. If and when we contact them, we will update this story. The Los Angeles Times was the first to report Siebel Newsom’s involvement in Weinstein’s trial in Los Angeles.

A longtime documentary filmmaker, as well as an actress before her marriage to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Siebel Newsom has detailed being attacked and assaulted by pulp Fiction producer Weinstein in a 2017 article.

It’s time I talked about Harvey Weinstein with so many others. And it’s time for others to stand with us. https://t.co/eKqVi6GDod

— Jennifer Siebel Newsom (@JenSiebelNewsom) October 6, 2017

“I was naive, new to the industry, and didn’t know how to handle his aggressive advances — invitations to work with a friend late at night at the Toronto Film Festival, and later an invitation to meet him at the about a role in The Peninsula Hotel, where the staff were present and then suddenly disappeared like clockwork, leaving me alone with this immensely powerful and intimidating Hollywood legend,” she wrote on October 6, 2017 in the Huffington Post just after the New York Times released her gripping expose of the decades of career-threatening rape, assault and harassment of the actress and other women in the entertainment industry.

Weinstein faces indictments before a grand jury on four counts of rape, four counts of forced oral copulation, one count of forcible sexual penetration, plus one count of forcible sexual assault and assault. sex in incidents involving five women in LA County from 2004 to 2013. Sentenced to 23 years in prison by a Manhattan jury in March 2020 for multiple sex crimes, Weinstein, 70, faces 140 years in prison s ‘he is found guilty in LA

With jury selection expected to last up to two weeks, the actual trial is unlikely to begin until Oct. 22 or 25, sources on both sides told Deadline. Once presumed to be less of a media circus than Weinstien’s 2020 sex crimes trial in New York, the Los Angeles proceedings are expected to last at least two months, with at least five of the mogul’s accusers jailed in time to testify.

Unlike the Manhattan trial, Weinstein will not appear in court every day in front of a phalanx of photographers and reporters. Held in DTLA’s Twin Towers Correctional Facility for more than a year since his extradition from a state prison outside Buffalo in the summer of 2021, Weinstein will slip through a backdoor every morning, change in costume and go straight into the heavily regulated courtroom.

As a case unfolds on the West Coast, on the East Coast, the appeal of the much accused Weinstein has begun to move forward in stops and starts. Earlier this summer, Janet DiFiore, Chief Justice of the New York State Court of Appeals, granted Weinstein the right to appeal his case in New York. Oral arguments on whether the producer received a fair trial two years ago will begin in early 2023, DiFiore said. Which means that if bail is granted in the New York case, Harvey Weinstein could suddenly walk out of jail in Los Angeles as his trial continues here.