First lady to testify in Harvey Weinstein’s Los Angeles rape trial says she had emotions of guilt for years: “I used to be destroying myself”

A lady who says Harvey Weinstein raped her in 2013 testified Tuesday that she had emotions of guilt and disgust that started quickly after she let him into her lodge room and lasted for years.

The lady, a mannequin and actor dwelling and dealing in Rome who was in Los Angeles on the time for a movie competition, stated that beginning the next day she started consuming closely.

“I used to be destroying myself,” she stated. “I used to be feeling very responsible. Most of all as a result of I opened that door.”

The lady was the primary of eight Weinstein accusers set to testify in a courtroom in Los Angeles the place the 70-year-old film mogul is on trial on a number of counts of rape and sexual assault. Weinstein, who’s already serving a 23-year sentence for a conviction in New York, has pleaded not responsible.

Most of the ladies stated that their assaults started with what had been alleged to be enterprise conferences with Weinstein at resorts. However, the lady testifying Tuesday stated she was shocked to seek out him knocking at her door late on an evening in February 2013 after she had met him solely briefly earlier within the night on the Los Angeles Italia movie competition.

Staying within the lodge below a pseudonym, she stated she had no thought how Weinstein even knew her room quantity and that she let him by means of her door initially with out considering there was any hurt in it. That shifted shortly when Weinstein grew to become sexually aggressive, she stated.

The lady, whose first language is Russian, stated that her English was very poor on the time although it has improved significantly since, and she or he thought she might need miscommunicated.

“I used to be feeling responsible that I did one thing or stated one thing that made him assume one thing may occur between us,” she stated.

She stated Weinstein pressured her to carry out oral intercourse on her lodge mattress.

“I used to be sort of hysterical by means of tears,” she stated. “I saved saying ‘no, no no.'”

She stated she bodily feared Weinstein, who outweighed her by 100 kilos or extra. She stated she thought of working, or hitting or biting him. Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson requested why she did not.

“I do not know,” she answered. “I remorse this quite a bit.”

She stated by the point Weinstein took her into the lavatory to rape her, she stopped bodily resisting, although nonetheless objected verbally.

“I might simply freeze, like my physique would not hear,” she stated.

She stated she struggled to face her youngsters after the incident, and felt the necessity to confess it to her Russian Orthodox priest. Prosecutors looked for the priest to testify, however he declined, citing spiritual privilege. The lady’s daughter, now 21, is about to testify later.

The lady cried sometimes throughout her testimony, however remained largely composed, trying down when she grew emotional to assemble herself.

A day earlier she was sobbing a lot in her account of the assault, court docket adjourned a couple of minutes early.

“I wish to apologize for my breakdown yesterday,” she stated when she returned to the stand Tuesday. “Unfortunately I can’t management that.”

The protection was set to cross-examine the lady both later Tuesday or Wednesday.

In his opening assertion, Weinstein lawyer Mark Werksman stated lots of the counts his consumer is charged with had been really consensual intercourse that his accusers reframed after he grew to become a lightning rod for the #MeToo motion in 2017.

But within the case of the lady testifying Tuesday, Werksman denied that the occasions in her lodge room occurred in any respect.

The lady’s title will not be being revealed in court docket. She is being known as “Jane Doe 1.”

The AP doesn’t sometimes title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused except they arrive ahead publicly.