LOS ANGELES –
An attorney for Harvey Weinstein on Friday repeatedly challenged a woman over why she didn’t protest more or leave a hotel room in Puerto Rico, where she said he sexually assaulted her. during a filming in 2003.
Attorney Mark Werksman asked the woman, known during Weinstein’s Los Angeles rape and sexual assault trial only as Ashley M., if she would ever think twice when she spoke. to yourself, “Shall I walk right out that door? “
“I was very nervous,” she said. “I know he’s grown up and I don’t know what to do,” she said. “
The woman was a 22-year-old dancer on the set of Puerto Rico in the movie “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights”, produced by Weinstein’s company, Miramax.
During the first day of Thursday’s testimony, Ashley M. said she accompanied Weinstein to the hotel because she was assured she would come to a meeting to discuss future opportunities. , but she said once they were alone, Weinstein pushed her to a bed meeting, swaddled her, and masturbated.
Werksman asked her if she really wasn’t expecting anything sexual after Weinstein, according to her earlier testimony, offered to get a “naked massage” from her during the conversation. their first story on set or not.
She reiterated that she had been reassured by the woman who was Weinstein’s assistant at the time that she would stay with them and that he only wanted to discuss future projects.
“I basically just did what I thought the people running the meeting wanted me to do. I really have no interest in being an actor. I’ve spent my life dancing,” she said. “I was engaged to be married. I wanted to finally start my life, maybe finally start a family at that point. “
Weinstein’s assistant did not follow them into the room, she said, but withdrew and closed the door.
She did say she wasn’t sure they were going to a private room, that they might be going to the office or some other space at the hotel.
Werksman asked if she thought to herself, “Now that I’m walking into a hotel, this isn’t about work. When did that dawn come to you? “
She said she was respected because Weinstein was “in charge”, a feeling she received strongly from others on set.
Werksman repeatedly asked her why she didn’t protest more.
“Do you say it out loud or express the panic you’re feeling out loud?” Werksman asked.
She replied yes.
She said earlier in her testimony that she knew she told him to stop, but she kept most of her objections quiet out of fear.
“I was so scared,” she said.
She said Weinstein told her “It’s okay, it’s not like we’re having sex.”
Werksman asked her if she would answer the same.
“I was just trying to leave,” she said. “I just hope that nothing worse happens.”
Werksman asked how she was dressed. She said she couldn’t remember, but didn’t think she wore the orange dress that was her wardrobe during the shoot.
Ashley M. is not one of five women Weinstein is accused of sexually assaulting. She was one of four other people who were allowed to testify at the trial about his criminal tendencies.
Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and denies engaging in any non-consensual sexual activity.
The 70-year-old movie mogul is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence for a sentence that is being appealed in New York.
The Associated Press usually doesn’t name people who say they’ve been sexually abused unless they make it public.
Ashley M. told her story to the New York Times in October 2017, when the newspaper’s accounts of women who said Weinstein sexually assaulted them made the film moderator central to the movement. #MeToo.
The testimony at the trial was the first time she told her story in the courtroom.
