Jessica Mann, who has accused Harvey Weinstein of multiple instances of rape and sexual abuse, broke down in sobs on the witness stand today as she recounted prior sexual abuse, prompting New York Supreme Court Judge James Burke to dismiss the jury until tomorrow morning.
Mann was reading a lengthy 2014 email she’d written to her boyfriend in which she explained her relationship with Weinstein – a relationship that was an ongoing point of contention with her boyfriend.
Weeping so hard her words were unintelligible, Mann insisted to her boyfriend that Weinstein “validated me” and that she’d tried to make him a “pseudo-father” in part because he “always offered to help me in ways my parents didn’t.”
“Harvey was my father’s age and he gave me all the validation I needed,” Mann had written to her boyfriend, identified in court as “Eddie.” Her email indicated that she had set clear “boundaries” with Weinstein and that the onetime Miramax honcho had “always been very nice” to her.
Mann also had written her boyfriend that Weinstein did not have a “working penis” due to “a fire” or possibly a deformity.
After a five-minute break, Mann re-entered the courtroom, still sobbing. Both prosecution and defense attorneys huddled with her at the witness stand before she stood and, seeming to hyperventilate, exited the stand and the courtroom.
The judge halted the trial until tomorrow morning.
Mann, formerly an aspiring actress, alleges that on several occasions beginning in 2013, Weinstein raped her orally and vaginally, a series of encounters that began with him demanding a massage at a suite at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills after the two had met there for dinner to discuss a possible role in the film Vampire Academy. Another assault, she says, occurred the following year at a New York hotel when she was visiting the city with two friends.
Weinstein has maintained that all sexual encounters with all of his accusers have been consensual. If convicted, he faces life in prison.
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