Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer on Monday hammered away at the credibility of Jessica Mann, whom Weinstein is charged with raping, asking why she continued seeing him even after the alleged assault.
Mann, 34, broke down in sobs on the witness stand after defense attorney Donna Rotunno asked her to read out loud for the jury a letter she wrote to a boyfriend in May 2014 about her relationship with Weinstein, which referred to having been sexually abused when she was younger.
“I remember the day I realized that I was controlling my world because I was sexually assaulted,” Mann read to the panel of seven men and five women.
Of Weinstein, she had written to her boyfriend: “I tried to make him into my pseudo-father.”
“This sexual assault was from when you were younger?” Rotunno asked her.
Mann twice dissolved in tears after Rotunno asked her about the earlier abuse.
New York State Supreme Court Justice James Burke initially had Mann escorted out so she could compose herself, but on her return, with the jury out of the room, she continued to weep and gasped for breath.
Burke suspended the trial early for the day and ordered prosecutors to have another witness ready to take the stand yesterday in case Mann is not ready.
On Friday, Mann testified that she was raised evangelical on a farm in Washington state.
She acknowledged agreeing to an “extremely degrading” sexual relationship with Weinstein after he befriended her and then performed a sex act on her at a Los Angeles hotel shortly before the alleged rape, which prosecutors say took place in a Manhattan hotel room in March 2013.
Rotunno on Monday grilled Mann on her relationship with Weinstein, which continued for years after the alleged rape, and about financial help he gave her and affectionate e-mails she sent him.
Asked why she agreed to go up to his hotel room on the day of the assault, Mann said she was trying to placate him.
Rotunno showed Mann e-mails she sent Weinstein from early 2013 to right after the alleged attack and then through at least 2016.
“As ‘manipulated’ as you claim you felt, isn’t it true that you manipulated Mr Weinstein because you continued to see him after every single sexual encounter?” Rotunno asked.
“How I handled it to survive and process it, yeah, I guess you could say it was manipulation,” Mann said after a long pause.
Weinstein has been charged with rape and predatory sexual assault for attacks on Mann and Miriam Haley, a former production assistant on his Project Runway television show.
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