Tag: Sexual misconduct

Dancer in Weinstein film testifies he sexually assaulted her

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LOS ANGELES — A dancer in a film produced by Harvey Weinstein testified Thursday that she was “freaked out” after meeting the movie mogul on the Puerto Rican set but the presence and reassurance of his assistant convinced her it was OK to go with him to his hotel, where she was later sexually assaulted.

The woman, who went by her first name and last initial Ashley M. at the Los Angeles trial where Weinstein is charged with rape and sexual assault, said she was a 22-year-old in 2003 when she was acting as a dancing double for one of the stars of “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights,” a film produced by Weinstein’s company Miramax.

She said Weinstein’s assistant at the time, Bonnie Hung, told her that she would remain with the two of them the entire time, and that he just wanted to talk about future projects.

As they walked down the hall of Weinstein’s hotel toward a door, she said, “I started to get more worried, but Bonnie was there with her clipboard.”

“Harvey opened it and then he went in and I went in,” she said, pausing as she began to cry. “And then Bonnie shut the door behind us. I was like, ‘oh no, what do I do?’”

She said Weinstein quickly became aggressive, pushing her on to the bed and taking her top off before straddling her and masturbating while on top of her, despite her telling him to stop.

The woman was the second Weinstein accuser to take the stand at the trial, and the first of four who are not involved in the charges against him but are being allowed to testify to show a propensity for such acts by Weinstein.

Judge Lisa B. Lench told jurors before the woman’s testimony that they would receive instructions later on how to consider it.

Weinstein, already serving a 23-year sentence for a New York conviction that is under appeal, has pleaded not guilty in Los Angeles to four counts of rape and seven other counts of sexual assault. He has repeatedly denied engaging in any non-consensual sex.

Ashley M. appeared rattled as she walked to the stand late in the day Thursday, and began crying before any questions were asked.

“I’m sorry,” she said repeatedly to Judge Lisa Lench, who replied that she had nothing to be sorry for and called for a short break.

She gathered herself and began her testimony, saying she had been a professional ballet dancer who had just shifted to dancing in Hollywood.

She said that Weinstein appeared on the set while they were filming in a ballroom, and asked her to step outside.

Ashley M. said Weinstein talked about her giving him a naked massage, and she tried to assuage him by saying she was engaged, and that she was needed on the set.

She said Weinstein told her he was the boss and got to decide who needed to be on set.

The woman called her mother and her then-fiance, who told her to seek help from others on the set.

Then someone said it was time for a meal break.

“I thought, ‘whew, saved by the bell,’” she testified.

During the break, she asked the films choreographer and a producer what to do, but got the sense that they didn’t want to upset Weinstein.

“Did either of them give you any sort of help?” Deputy District Attorney Marlene Martinez asked.

“No,” Ashley M. said.

“How did you feel then?” Martinez asked.

“Freaked out,” the witness answered.

Ashley M. said when the returned to the set Weinstein was waiting there with a limo, and Hung.

“I felt better just knowing I wasn’t alone,” she said.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they have come forward publicly.

Ashley M. told her story to the New York Times in October of 2017, when the newspaper’s accounts of women who say Weinstein sexually assaulted them put the movie executive at the center of the #MeToo movement.

Thursday was the first time she has told her story in a courtroom.

Ashley M. is expected to return to the witness stand for more questioning from prosecutors Friday, followed by cross-examination from Weinstein’s defense.

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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October 27, 2022
These are the women expected to testify against Harvey Weinstein at his second sexual assault trial | CNN

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CNN
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Reporting five years ago on Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexual abuse spurred women to speak publicly about their own experiences with sexual violence in what became known as the #MeToo movement.

Now, in a Los Angeles courtroom, eight women are set to testify in a trial altogether similar to the one that led to Weinstein’s landmark conviction two years ago.

Weinstein, the 70-year-old movie producer, has pleaded not guilty to 11 charges based on allegations of sexual assault at Los Angeles hotels between 2004 to 2013.

Opening statements in the trial began Monday and one woman has already testified about her alleged assault. Three more women are expected to testify directly to the charges, and four other women are expected to testify as “prior bad acts” witnesses, meaning their testimony isn’t directly connected to a charge but can be considered as prosecutors try to show Weinstein had a pattern in his behavior.

He was found guilty in New York in 2020 of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape and was sentenced to 23 years in prison. He has appealed.

Here’s what we know about the women set to testify in the California case and the charges connected to their allegations based on comments from the prosecution, the defense and their testimony.

Weinstein is charged with forcible oral copulation and forcible rape of Jane Doe 4 between September 1, 2004, and September 30, 2005.

Jane Doe 4 has been identified as Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a filmmaker and the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. In a statement, her attorneys confirmed she would be testifying against Weinstein in court.

“Like many other women, my client was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein at a purported business meeting that turned out to be a trap,” said Beth Fegan, one of Siebel Newsom’s attorneys. “She intends to testify at his trial to seek some measure of justice for survivors and as part of her life’s work to improve the lives of women.”

Siebel Newsom is a Stanford University graduate who has written, directed and produced several documentaries, including “Miss Representation,” “The Mask You Live In” and “The Great American Lie.” During her time as California’s first partner, Siebel Newsom has advocated for working mothers and launched initiatives focused on closing the gender pay gap, among other efforts.

In opening statements, prosecutor Paul Thompson said the assault occurred when Siebel Newsom was a “powerless actor trying to make her way in Hollywood.” Weinstein invited her to “discuss her career” at the Peninsula Hotel, and in a hotel room, he assaulted and raped her, the prosecutor said.

Defense attorney Mark Werksman countered that Siebel Newsom had consensual sex with Weinstein because she wanted his help getting roles and producing films.

Werksman also said Weinstein donated to two of Gov. Newsom’s political races and that Siebel Newsom took her husband to a Weinstein party. “She brought her husband to meet and party with the man who raped her. Who does that?” he asked.

Siebel Newsom has written about the incident with Weinstein in vague terms. In October 2017, just a day after The New York Times published its bombshell report on Weinstein, she wrote an opinion editorial for the Huffington Post saying she believed the report because she had a similar experience with Weinstein.

“I was naive, new to the industry, and didn’t know how to deal with his aggressive advances ― work invitations with a friend late-night at The Toronto Film Festival, and later an invitation to meet with him about a role in The Peninsula Hotel, where staff were present and then all of a sudden disappeared like clockwork, leaving me alone with this extremely powerful and intimidating Hollywood legend,” she wrote.

Weinstein is charged with forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by foreign object and forcible rape of Jane Doe 1 on or about February 18, 2013, in Los Angeles County, according to the indictment.

Jane Doe 1 was a model and actress who was married, had three children and was living in Italy in 2013. She speaks Russian, Italian and English, but her English was not very good at the time, she said.

She was the first witness to testify in the trial and said she was staying in a hotel for the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival when she got a call that Weinstein wanted to see her. She testified she had met him previously in Rome.

He came to her hotel room and tried to rape her, she testified.

“I wanted to die. It was disgusting. It was humiliating, miserable. I didn’t fight,” she testified in court. “I remember how he was looking in the mirror and he was telling me to look at him. I wish this never happened to me.”

Years later, she told her daughter about the assault in an attempt to connect with her about a similar issue, she testified. Jane Doe 1 then went to the police in October 2017 because she promised her daughter she would, she testified.

In the defense’s opening statements, Werksman said she had fabricated the story and argued there was no evidence he went to her hotel room. Under cross-examination, she acknowledged she had no evidence to show the jury that would prove she was with Weinstein that night and said she couldn’t remember everything about the incident.

“I remember a lot but I forgot a lot also,” she said.

Weinstein is charged with sexual battery by restraint of Jane Doe 2 on or about February 19, 2013, in Los Angeles County.

Jane Doe 2 was a 23-year-old model and aspiring screenwriter who had been modeling since she was 12, Thompson said in opening statements.

She alleges she was assaulted during the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival, according to Thompson. She met with Weinstein at a restaurant at the Montage hotel and told him she wanted to be a screenwriter, the prosecutor said. The meeting then moved to a space upstairs, and when Weinstein led her into a bathroom, another woman shut the door behind Jane Doe 2, the prosecutor said.

While she was trapped inside with Weinstein, he allegedly undid her dress, groped her and masturbated, the prosecutor said.

The next day, she went to a pre-scheduled meeting with a Weinstein Company employee and was advised to go on “Project Runway,” a Weinstein-produced reality TV show.

Werksman, the defense attorney, said in opening statements that Jane Doe 2 fabricated her story and noted that she met with the Weinstein Company employee the next day.

Weinstein is charged with sexual battery by restraint of Jane Doe 3 on or about May 11, 2010.

Jane Doe 3 was a licensed massage therapist who often worked with celebrities and athletes, Thompson said.

In 2010, she massaged Weinstein and then went to the restroom to wash her hands, and he followed her into the bathroom, backed her into a corner, groped her and masturbated, Thompson said.

Weinstein had suggested Jane Doe 3 could write a book about her massage work, Thompson said, and afterward an aide to Weinstein paid her $200 for the massage and put her in touch with Miramax’s book division about a potential book deal.

In contrast, Werksman argued that their sexual interaction was consensual and part of an arrangement. He said that Jane Doe 3 gave him four additional massages after the alleged assault.

“She made a deal. Sex in exchange for something of value. Jane Doe 3 and Mr. Weinstein were friends with benefits,” Werksman argued.

Weinstein is charged with four counts related to Jane Doe 5: forcible oral copulation and forcible rape between November 3 and November 9, 2009, and forcible oral copulation and forcible rape on or about November 5, 2010, according to the indictment.

However, prosecutors did not mention her or her accusations in opening statements of the trial, and neither did the defense. The current status of these charges is not clear.

“While we have no comment at this time, our office is tirelessly ensuring all of the victims in this case receive justice,” the district attorney’s office said.

Like in his New York trial, Weinstein’s LA trial will feature testimony from several “prior bad acts” witnesses.

There are four of these witnesses in this case, identified by their first name and initial. Each of these women alleged they were assaulted by Weinstein outside of LA jurisdiction.

In all, the defense argued these witnesses were being used solely to “confuse and overwhelm” the jury. Werksman defended Weinstein’s actions as part of the “casting couch” culture at the time.

The prosecution said the testimony from these women will prove Weinstein’s guilt on the charges.

“Each of these women came forward independent of each other, and none of them knew one another,” Thompson told the jury.

Ambra B. went to Weinstein’s office for a meeting in Manhattan in 2015 and he grabbed her breast and put his hand up her skirt, prosecutors said. She reported the incident to the NYPD, which then directed her to speak with him on the phone and at a hotel restaurant and secretly record their conversations, according to Thompson. No charges were filed against Weinstein.

Werksman argued nothing on the recording was tantamount to a confession and dismissed her as someone playing a “junior G-man” in an undercover sting targeting Weinstein.

Ashley M., a dancer in the movie “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights,” was alone in a hotel room with Weinstein in 2003 and said he groped her and masturbated on her, according to Thompson.

Werksman argued she did not resist or refuse the interaction at the time.

Natassia M. met Weinstein and briefly interacted with him at an industry party for the 2008 British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards and alleges he raped her at her hotel, according to Thompson.

Werksman said there was no evidence of rape and notes they maintained contact for years afterward.

Kelly S. was an actor in 1991 when, in a hotel room for the Toronto International Film Festival, Weinstein raped her, Thompson said. In 2008, at the same festival, she went to his hotel room with the intention of confronting him, and when he allegedly started groping her and masturbating, she left the room, the prosecutor said.

Werksman attacked the idea that she didn’t confront him immediately upon seeing him again in 2008 and said she didn’t report the incident to police until 2018.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported Harvey Weinstein was arrested in the alleged incident involving Ambra B.

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October 27, 2022
Weinstein lawyer presses woman over absence of rape evidence

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LOS ANGELES — An attorney for Harvey Weinstein peppered a woman with questions Wednesday on the lack of forensic evidence that the movie magnate raped her in 2013, or that he was even at the hotel where she says the assault occurred.

“You don’t have any physical evidence to present to this jury that any of this happened, do you?” lawyer Alan Jackson asked pointedly during cross-examination.

When the judge at the 70-year-old Weinstein’s Los Angeles trial sustained an objection to the question because it called for speculation, Jackson got more specific:

“Any photos?”

“No,” the woman said quietly.

“Any video?”

“No,” she replied, then added, “Do you think somebody after rape makes a video?”

She began crying softly as she answered “no” to a series of similar questions about whether she had any documentation of bruises, scrapes, cuts, or handprints on her face from Weinstein holding her down, or had been given a sexual assault examination.

“Do you have any physical evidence that you were even with Mr. Weinstein?” Jackson asked.

Her crying grew louder as she answered, “I had his jacket, but I gave it away.”

The woman, a model and actor who was working in Rome, is the the first of Weinstein’s accusers to testify at the trial and spent portions of three days on the witness stand.

Prosecutors have presented photographs and other evidence that both Weinstein and the woman were at the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival, which she had come to California to attend in February 2013.

But they have not yet produced anything that puts Weinstein at her hotel on the night she says he forced her to perform oral sex on her bed then raped her in her bathroom.

The woman did not go to police until October of 2017, when women’s stories about Weinstein made him the central figure in the #MeToo movement.

She maintains that Weinstein left her jacket in the room and she gave it to hotel staff, but no lost-and-found records have been discovered to demonstrate it.

Asked whether the explosion of media stories around Weinstein prompted her to go to police, the woman repeated earlier testimony that she had already decided to file a report earlier in the year when she urged her teenage daughter to go to authorities over sexual harassment she’d been subjected to at school.

The woman is going only by “Jane Doe 1” in court. Her age and birthplace have also been kept out of court proceedings, though she has said her first language was Russian and she was living at the time with her three children in Italy, where she had married into considerable wealth.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly.

Weinstein’s defense tried to poke holes in her testimony and press on inconsistencies in previous accounts she gave to police, to prosecutors, to a grand jury, and in the first two days of her trial testimony.

In graphic questioning, Jackson dwelt on the woman’s description in her initial interview with police of oral sex she said Weinstein forced her to perform. Jackson suggested that Weinstein’s unusual genital features after a surgery he had years earlier made the acts she described impossible.

The same acts went unmentioned during her 2020 grand jury testimony, and Jackson asked her whether she had learned more about Weinstein’s sex organs from prosecutors and thus changed her story.

“Never!” she said adamantly.

Under questioning later from the prosecution, she described “very bad scarring tissue” around Weinstein’s genitals.

It was the first time jurors heard from a witness about Weinstein’s anatomy, which arose often in his 2020 trial in New York, where he was convicted of rape and sexual assault and sentenced to 23 years in prison.

The woman told prosecutor Paul Thompson that she had been having panic attacks and had hardly slept or eaten since her testimony began Monday afternoon. It finally ended late Wednesday.

Weinstein has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of rape and sexual assault involving five women.

When prosecutors gave their opening statement Monday, however, they excluded one of the women, putting into question whether the four counts involving her will be addressed during the trial.

The district attorney’s office has declined to explain when asked about the issue.

Weinstein’s attorneys said no charges have been dropped.

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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For more on the Harvey Weinstein trial, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/harvey-weinstein

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October 26, 2022
Woman testifies Harvey Weinstein rape filled her with guilt

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LOS ANGELES — A woman who says Harvey Weinstein raped her in 2013 testified Tuesday that she had feelings of guilt and disgust that began soon after she let him into her hotel room and lasted for years.

The woman, a model and actor living and working in Rome who was in Los Angeles at the time for a film festival, said that starting the following day she began drinking heavily.

“I was destroying myself,” she said. “I was feeling very guilty. Most of all because I opened that door.”

The woman was the first of eight Weinstein accusers set to testify in a courtroom in Los Angeles where the 70-year-old movie mogul is on trial on multiple counts of rape and sexual assault. Weinstein, who is already serving a 23-year sentence for a conviction in New York, has pleaded not guilty.

Most of the women said that their assaults began with what were supposed to be business meetings with Weinstein at hotels. However, the woman testifying Tuesday said she was stunned to find him knocking at her door late on a night in February 2013 after she had met him only briefly earlier in the evening at the Los Angeles Italia film festival.

Staying in the hotel under a pseudonym, she said she had no idea how Weinstein even knew her room number and that she let him through her door initially without thinking there was any harm in it. That shifted quickly when Weinstein became sexually aggressive, she said.

The woman, whose first language is Russian, said that her English was very poor at the time though it has improved considerably since, and she thought she might have miscommunicated.

“I was feeling guilty that I did something or said something that made him think something could happen between us,” she said.

She said Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on her hotel bed.

“I was kind of hysterical through tears,” she said. “I kept saying ‘no, no no.’”

She said she physically feared Weinstein, who outweighed her by 100 pounds or more.

She said she considered running, or hitting or biting him.

Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson asked why she didn’t.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I regret this a lot.”

She said by the time Weinstein took her into the bathroom to rape her, she stopped physically resisting, though still objected verbally.

“I would just freeze, like my body wouldn’t listen,” she said.

She said she struggled to face her children after the incident, and felt the need to confess it to her Russian Orthodox priest. Prosecutors sought for the priest to testify, but he declined, citing religious privilege. The woman’s daughter, now 21, is set to testify later.

In his opening statement, Weinstein attorney Mark Werksman said many of the counts his client is charged with were actually consensual sex that his accusers reframed after he became a lightning rod for the #MeToo movement in 2017.

But in the case of the woman testifying Tuesday, Weinstein’s attorneys deny that the events in her hotel room happened at all. No records, surveillance video or other evidence places Weinstein at the woman’s hotel, Mr. C Beverly Hills, on the night she says she was raped.

Weinstein attorney Alan Jackson pressed her on this during cross-examination, asking how Weinstein could have learned her room number and been allowed to her door, and why she made no complaints to hotel staff over “this terrible breach of protocol.”

She answered, “Because of what happened to me. Because I didn’t want anybody to know.”

Jackson then asked why she stayed in the same hotel for weeks afterward, and did not even change rooms.

“You stayed in the very room that you claim you were attacked and victimized by a sexual predator?” Jackson asked.

The woman conceded that she had.

She cried occasionally during her testimony, but remained mostly composed, looking down when she grew emotional to gather herself.

A day earlier she was sobbing so much in her account of the assault, court adjourned a few minutes early.

“I want to apologize for my breakdown yesterday,” she said when she returned to the stand Tuesday. “Unfortunately I cannot control that.”

She is expected to return to the stand Wednesday.

The woman’s name is not being revealed in court. She is being referred to as “Jane Doe 1.”

The AP does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly.

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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For more on the Harvey Weinstein trial, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/harvey-weinstein

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October 25, 2022
Prosecutor: Women’s stories show Weinstein’s predatory power

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LOS ANGELES — A prosecutor at Harvey Weinstein‘s sexual assault trial told jurors Tuesday that the accusers who will testify will tell uncannily similar stories of themselves as young aspiring women who were cornered in hotel rooms by a man who at the time was the definition of Hollywood power.

“Each of these women came forward independent of each other, and none of them knew one another,” Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson said during his opening statement at Weinstein’s Los Angeles trial.

The 70-year-old former movie mogul, already serving a 23-year sentence in New York, is charged with multiple counts of rape and sexual assault in California.

The defense countered in its opening statement that the incidents either did not happen or were consensual sex that the women redefined in the wake of the #MeToo movement.

Weinstein, prosecutor Thompson said, lorded his status as “the most powerful man in Hollywood” over them, talking about the female A-list actors whose careers he had made before growing aggressive.

Thompson played a video presentation with composite photos of the women who will testify and quotes from prior testimonials. Most were aspiring actors. One was an aspiring screenwriter who thought she was going to pitch him a script.

All will testify that Weinstein ignored clear signs that they did not consent, the prosecutor said, including “their shaking bodies, their crying, their backing away from him, their saying ‘no.’” Four women whom Weinstein is not charged with assaulting in the case will also testify about what he did to them to demonstrate his propensity for such acts, Thompson said.

Weinstein attorney Mark Werksman told jurors that what Weinstein did with the women was considered acceptable, “transactional” behavior in Hollywood, where young women were seeking roles and other advantages by having sex with the powerful movie magnate.

“You’ll learn that in Hollywood, sex was a commodity,” Werksman said.

The accusers Weinstein is charged with assaulting are expected to be identified only as Jane Doe in court, but they include Jennifer Siebel Newsom, an actor and documentary filmmaker who is married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Siebel Newsom had not yet met Newsom and was an aspiring actor in 2005 when, according to his indictment, Weinstein raped her at a Beverly Hills Hotel.

Without using her name, both sides said she would testify. Werksman called her a very prominent citizen of California.”

“She’s made herself a prominent victim in the #MeToo movement,” he added, “otherwise she’d be just another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood.”

In a statement to The Associated Press, Elizabeth Fegen, who represents Siebel Newsom and two other Weinstein accusers, called the comments “despicable, desperate, dishonest.”

“The defense is callously engaging in misogynistic name-calling and victim-shaming — but survivors will not be deterred,” she added.

Werksman said Siebel Newsom and many other women in the case had contact, and even initiated dealings, with Weinstein in the years after the encounters, often referring to him affectionately.

In an attempt to head off this strategy, Thompson told jurors that they would hear from a psychologist who will dispel rape myths. Key among them is the idea that a sexual assault victim would not have further contact with their assailant.

Werksman said that Weinstein’s consensual acts were transformed in October 2017 with “the asteroid called the #MeToo movement.”

“He became the smoldering, radioactive center of it,” Werksman said. “He is Hollywood’s Chernobyl.”

He said that there was suddenly “a new word” for the women, “victim.”

The AP does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly. Siebel Newsom’s identity was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, and her attorney has told the AP and other news outlets that she is among the women Weinstein is charged with sexually assaulting who will testify during the trial.

The first of Weinstein’s accusers to testify, a model and actor who was living and working in Italy when she met him at a film festival in Los Angeles in 2013, said she was stunned to find him knocking at the door of her hotel room after interacting with him briefly earlier that evening.

She said she was more confused than frightened at first, so she let Weinstein in, but he grew more aggressive. She said he eventually forced her to perform oral sex.

“I was crying, choking,” said the woman.

She grew increasingly emotional on the stand until she was sobbing so much that she could no longer speak.

With the court day near an end, Judge Lisa Lench called for a recess until Tuesday morning, when she’ll return to the stand.

At the beginning of the day, Weinstein was wheeled into court wearing a suit, and climbed into a seat next to his attorneys.

Confusion arose when Thompson during his opening statement made no mention of one accuser who had been set to testify as recently as last week. Weinstein was indicted on 11 counts overall, four of which involved the woman who was not mentioned. The district attorney’s office did not address why the woman was not referenced.

Outside court, Weinstein’s attorney said no charges had been dismissed.

“The people left her out of their presentation, so I didn’t mention her,” he said. “It’s a glaring absence, though, in their presentation.”

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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For more on the Harvey Weinstein trial, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/harvey-weinstein

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October 24, 2022
Harvey Weinstein’s 2nd sexual assault trial begins with eight accusers set to testify, prosecutors say | CNN

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CNN
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Eight women who say they were sexually assaulted by movie producer Harvey Weinstein will testify at his criminal trial in Los Angeles over the coming weeks, prosecutors said in opening statements Monday.

“Each of these women came forward independent of each other, and none of them knew one another,” prosecutor Paul Thompson told the jury, according to a pool report.

Four of the women’s testimony will be directly connected to specific charges. These women include Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a filmmaker and the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom; Jane Doe 1, a model and actress who lived in Italy at the time; Jane Doe 2, a 23-year-old model and aspiring screenwriter; and Jane Doe 3, a licensed massage therapist, according to a pool report.

The most recent indictment in the case indicated there were five women directly connected to charges. CNN is working to clarify the difference between that indictment and the prosecutors’ opening statements.

In addition, four women will testify as “prior bad acts” witnesses, meaning their testimony isn’t related to a specific charge but can be used by the jury as prosecutors try to show Weinstein had a pattern in his actions. These women will testify about assaults outside of Los Angeles jurisdiction, Thompson said.

Weinstein, 70, has pleaded not guilty to charges including rape and forcible oral copulation related to incidents dating from 2004 to 2013, according to the indictment.

In court Monday, he appeared hunched over as he clambered from a wheelchair into a chair at the defense table. Wearing a suit and tie, he primarily looked at jurors throughout the proceedings.

The trial in California is his second such sexual assault case since reporting by The New York Times and The New Yorker in 2017 revealed Weinstein’s alleged history of sexual abuse, harassment and secret settlements as he used his influence as a Hollywood power broker to take advantage of young women.

At the time, Weinstein was one of the most powerful men in Hollywood and helped produce movies such as “Pulp Fiction,” “Clerks” and “Shakespeare in Love.”

The revelations led to a wave of women speaking publicly about the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and harassment in what became known as the #MeToo movement.

Weinstein was found guilty in 2020 in New York of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape and was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Yet he has maintained his innocence, and New York’s highest court agreed in August to hear his appeal in the case.

In opening statements, Thompson outlined the women’s accusations and noted the similarities in their stories. The women will testify that Weinstein lured them into private meetings, often in hotel rooms, and then sexually assaulted them, Thompson said.

“I’m shaking and I’m kind of being dragged to the bedroom,” he quoted one woman as saying, according to the pool report.

Thompson also highlighted the women’s understanding of Weinstein’s imposing physical size as well as his power in Hollywood to make or break careers, the pool report said.

“I was scared that if I didn’t play nice something could happen in the room or out of the room because of his power in the industry,” one woman said, according to Thompson.

The women allegedly told friends and family members about their assaults, and those people may also be called to testify in the trial to confirm or deny such conversations.

Notably, the licensed massage therapist told Mel Gibson, the famed actor and director, about her assault, Thompson said.

The trial in Los Angeles comes two years after Weinstein was convicted in New York of similar charges featuring different women.

The New York charges were based on testimony from Miriam Haley, who testified that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in 2006 at his Manhattan apartment, and from Jessica Mann, who testified that he raped her in 2013 during what she described as an abusive relationship.

He did not testify in his own defense, but at his sentencing he offered an unexpected, rambling speech which oscillated between remorse, defense of his actions and confusion.

“I’m not going to say these aren’t great people, I had wonderful times with these people, you know,” Weinstein said of the women who accused him of assault. “It is just I’m totally confused, and I think men are confused about all of these issues.”

The former movie producer appeared in frail health during the trial and used a walker as he arrived to and left court each day. He used a wheelchair to arrive to the sentencing in March 2020 as well as in a court hearing in Los Angeles in July 2021. His attorneys have argued the lengthy prison sentence was a de facto life sentence due to his failing health.

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October 24, 2022
Everyone Who Has Publicly Accused Bill Murray of Misconduct

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Green was just nine years old when he appeared on Saturday Night Live, where he says he had an unpleasant encounter with Murray backstage. On the YouTube show Good Mythical Morning, Green alleged that Murray “made a big fuss” about him sitting on the arm of his chair. “I was like, ‘That is absurd. I am sitting on the arm of this couch. There are several lengths of this sofa. Kindly eff off.’ And he was like, ‘That’s my chair.’” Then, Green said, Murray picked him up by his ankles and dangled him over a trash can while saying, “The trash goes in the trash can.”

“I was screaming, and I swung my arms, flailed wildly—full contact with his balls,” Green recalled. “He dropped me in the trash can, the trash can falls over. I was horrified. I ran away, hid under the table in my dressing room, and just cried.” Murray hasn’t addressed Green’s allegations.

Anjelica Huston

Oscar winner Anjelica Huston described Murray as “a shit” after working with him on Wes Anderson’s 2004 film The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. In 2019, Huston told Vulture that while filming, Murray invited everyone in the cast except her to dinner. “I was really hurt,” she continued. “And then I think we met again in Florence, because that movie was shot all over Italy, and we were doing a scene at Gore Vidal’s house in Ravello, and [Murray] said, ‘Hey, how’ve you been? I missed you.’ I said, ‘You’re full of shit. You didn’t miss me.’ He looked all confused for a moment.” However, Huston says that Murray showed up at the funeral of her late husband, Robert Graham, and that Murray “couldn’t have been nicer that day.” “He showed up,” she said. “A lot of people didn’t.”

Solange Knowles

Murray’s alleged misdeeds at SNL continued as recently as 2016, when he appeared as a special guest. At the taping, Murray allegedly grabbed Solange Knowles’s hair, repeatedly asking the singer if her hair was a wig just after she had performed her song “Don’t Touch My Hair” as the week’s musical guest. While Solange has never publicly accused Murray of doing this, she liked tweets describing the incident from TV writer and producer Judnick Mayard, who witnessed the interaction. “Your yearly reminder that I saw Bill Murray put both his hands into Solange’s scalp after asking her three times if her hair was a wig or not,” wrote Mayard, in a tweet liked by Solange. Murray has yet to comment on these allegations.

Lucy Liu

Charlie’s Angels star Liu claims that Murray hurled “inexcusable and unacceptable” comments at her during a rehearsal on the set of the 2000 action-comedy, after a scene the pair was filming was reworked without his knowledge. Per The Times, Murray allegedly told Liu that she “couldn’t act” and Liu responded by allegedly throwing punches at the comedian. “I stood up for myself, and I don’t regret it,” she said. “Because no matter how low on the totem pole you may be or wherever you came from, there’s no need to condescend or to put other people down.” Liu told Deadline in 2021 that she has “nothing against Bill Murray” and the two saw each other at a Saturday Night Live reunion and he was “perfectly nice.” Murray shared his version of events with The Times in 2009, saying, “Look, I will dismiss you completely if you are unprofessional and working with me. When our relationship is professional, and you’re not getting that done, forget it.”

McG

Charlie’s Angels director McG (whose full name is Joseph McGinty Nichol) also apparently had his own issues with Murray on set, claiming Murray headbutted him while they were filming. “I’ve been headbutted by an A-list star. Square in the head,” Nichol told The Guardian in May 2009. “An inch later and my nose would have been obliterated.” Murray, however, claims this is completely false. “That’s bulls—! That’s complete crap!” he told The Times. “I don’t know why he made that story up. He has a very active imagination.”

Jennifer Butler Murray

During their divorce proceedings, Murray’s ex-wife Jennifer Butler Murray accused the actor of assault, alleging that the Lost in Translation star hit her in the face in November 2007 and told her she’s “lucky he didn’t kill her.” In the filing, Butler Murray also accused her ex-husband of “adultery, addiction to marijuana and alcohol, abusive behavior…sexual addictions and frequent abandonment.” At the time, Murray’s attorney, John McDougall, didn’t respond to the allegations made by Murray’s wife but released a statement regarding the divorce. “Bill Murray is deeply saddened by the breakup of his marriage with Jennifer,” said McDougall. “He and his wife made loving parents, and they are committed to the best interests of their children.” In 2008, their divorce was finalized and Butler Murray was granted primary custody of their four children.

Harold Ramis

Murray collaborated with late actor Harold Ramis on Ghostbusters, Caddyshack, and Meatballs without any apparent issues, but the duo reportedly had a falling-out while Ramis was directing Murray in Groundhog Day. Ramis’s daughter Violet Ramis Stiel detailed her father and Murray’s thorny relationship in Ghostbuster’s Daughter: Life With My Dad, Harold Ramis, writing that the pair had multiple arguments on set, including one incident where Ramis grabbed Murray by the collar, and shoved him up against a wall. “Bill was going through a difficult time in his personal life, and he and my dad were not seeing eye to eye on the tone of the film,” Stiel said, and revealed that Murray “completely shut my dad out…for the next twenty-plus years.” According to Stiel’s book, Murray reportedly attempted to reconcile with Ramis just before his death in 2014.

Rob Schneider

Another entry in the Murray-misbehaving-at-SNL annals, Rob Schneider said that Murray “absolutely hated” the cast when he returned to host in 1993. “He wasn’t very nice to us,” said Schneider on SiriusXM’s Jim Norton & Sam Roberts Show. “He hated us on Saturday Night Live when he hosted. Absolutely hated us. I mean, seething…. It was just naked rage.” Schneider went on to say Murray seemed to have a particular distaste for cast members Adam Sandler and Chris Farley. “[He] really hated Sandler,” Schneider said, speculating that Sandler’s comedy just wasn’t his “groove.” Schneider rationalized a reason why Murray, “hated Chris Farley with a passion,” suggesting that it might have had to do with Farley’s similarities with Murray’s friend and SNL costar John Belushi, both of whom died of drug overdoses at the age of 33. “I want to believe that it’s because Chris thought it was cool to be Belushi, who [was] his friend who he saw die, that he thought it was cool to be that out of control. That’s my interpretation, but I don’t really know. I don’t believe it. I only believe it 50%.”

Laura Ziskin

A producer on Bill Murray’s What About Bob?, Laura Ziskin said that she butted heads (metaphorically) with Murray and that Murray once threw her in a lake while they were filming, albeit in jest. “Bill also threatened to throw me across the parking lot and then broke my sunglasses and threw them across the parking lot,” she said in a 2003 interview with The Baltimore Sun. “I was furious and outraged at the time, but having produced a dozen movies, I can safely say it is not common behavior.” Murray did not comment on the allegations at the time.

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October 24, 2022
Start your week smart: China, Hurricane Roslyn, Boris Johnson, Red Bull, Jan. 6 | CNN

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CNN
—

The 2022 midterm elections are now just weeks away, and with control of both chambers of Congress and dozens of governorships, secretaries of state and attorneys general posts on the line, it’s important to know both how and when to vote in your state. To help you plan your vote, CNN has gathered the deadlines for early in-person voting, absentee/mail-in voting and for voter registration in each of the 50 states leading up to Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 8.

Here’s what else you need to know to Start Your Week Smart.

• Chinese leader Xi Jinping has formally stepped into his norm-breaking third term ruling China with an iron grip on power as he revealed a new leadership team today stacked with loyal allies.

• Hurricane Roslyn slammed into Mexico’s Pacific coast as a major Category 3 storm today, bringing dangerous storm surge and flooding to parts of the country, forecasters said.

• Boris Johnson is trying to win enough support to make what would be a stunning comeback as Britain’s prime minister, as senior Conservative politicians declared their support for former finance minister Rishi Sunak. The two men have become the early favorites to replace Liz Truss, who announced her resignation last week.

• Dietrich Mateschitz, the owner and co-founder of the sports drink company Red Bull, has died, the company announced Saturday. He was 78. As well as turning his energy drink into a market leader, the Austrian billionaire also founded one of the most successful Formula One teams in recent history.

• The House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol announced on Friday that the panel has officially sent a subpoena to former President Donald Trump as it paints him as the central figure in the multi-step plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Monday

Opening statements are scheduled to begin in the sexual assault trial of disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein in Los Angeles. Weinstein, 70, was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape charges in New York more than two years ago and sentenced to 23 years in prison. In Los Angeles, Weinstein faces multiple sexual assault charges that he pleaded not guilty to last year.

Diwali, the Hindu celebration known as the “Festival of Lights,” also begins on Monday. New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced last week that Diwali will be a public school holiday starting in 2023.

Tuesday

A Moscow regional court has set October 25 as an appeal date for WNBA star Brittney Griner. Griner was sentenced to nine years of jail time in early August for deliberately smuggling drugs into Russia. She was arrested with less than 1 gram of cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport on February 17.

In what has become one of the most closely watched Senate contests in the country, Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman and Republican candidate Mehmet Oz will face each other in a televised debate in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Fetterman, who had a near-fatal stroke more than five months ago, has faced a number of questions about transparency surrounding his health and recovery. Fetterman’s primary care physician released a medical report earlier this month stating that the candidate is “recovering well from his stroke” and “has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office.”

Wednesday

Hillary Clinton – former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic nominee for President – turns 75.

Saturday

October 29 is National Cat Day. “Meh,” said cats …

Hear a story of Iranian resistance

In this week’s One Thing podcast, CNN Chief International Investigative Correspondent Nima Elbagir joins us from Northern Iraq, where some Iranian dissidents have fled a brutal crackdown in response to nationwide protests set off by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. We explore if these protests will bring lasting change and hear from one Iranian-Kurdish activist who is now taking up arms across the border. Listen here.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss announces her resignation in front of 10 Downing Street in London on Thursday, October 20.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

a drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday, October 17. A wave of drone attacks pummeled the capital city early Monday as commuters headed to work.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

ended a 15-game losing streak against Alabama. They won 52-49 with a last second 40-yard field goal.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

Mississippi to record lows.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

20th Communist Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Sunday, October 16. Xi is poised to secure a norm-breaking third term in power.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

as it splashes down off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, on Friday, October 14, with European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Robert Hines and Jessica Watkins. They are returning after 170 days aboard the International Space Station.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

James Webb Space Telescope. It shows a highly detailed view of the Pillars of Creation, a vista of three looming towers made of interstellar dust and gas that’s speckled with newly formed stars. The area, which lies within the Eagle Nebula about 6,500 light-years from Earth, had previously been captured by the Hubble Telescope in 1995, creating an image deemed “iconic” by space observers.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

found him not liable for battery on allegations he picked up actor Anthony Rapp and briefly laid on top of him in a bed after a party in 1986. Jurors deliberated for about an hour and concluded Rapp did not prove that Spacey “touched a sexual or intimate part” of him.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

warned it could take up to six months for the water to recede in the wake of the country’s “unprecedented” flooding.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

expelled from the United States on Monday, October 17.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

deadly drone attacks.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

See last week in 32 photos.” class=”image_gallery-image__dam-img”/>

Check out more moving, fascinating and thought-provoking images from the week that was, curated by CNN Photos.

TV and streaming

The season finale of “House of the Dragon,” the “Game of Thrones” prequel that takes place almost 200 years before the events of its predecessor, airs tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO. (HBO, like CNN, is a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery.)

“Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities” makes its debut on Netflix Tuesday. The new horror anthology promises “eight tales of terror” curated by the Oscar-winning director of “The Shape of Water.”

“The Good Nurse,” starring Oscar winners Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain, tells the story of an infamous caregiver implicated in the deaths of hundreds of hospital patients. It begins streaming on Netflix Wednesday.

“All Quiet on the Western Front,” based on the classic World War I novel, arrives on Netflix Friday.

Baseball

Four teams remain in the battle to reach the 2022 World Series, which begins on Friday. Later today, the San Diego Padres face the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. On Saturday, the Phillies beat the Padres to take a 3-1 lead in the series. The Houston Astros, meanwhile, play the New York Yankees tonight in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series. Houston leads that series 3-0.

Take CNN’s weekly news quiz to see how much you remember from the week that was! So far, 66% of fellow quiz fans have gotten eight or more questions right. How will you fare?

Christina Aguilera – Beautiful (2022 Version)

‘Beautiful’

A lot has changed about the world in the last 20 years, but Christina Aguilera still thinks you’re beautiful – despite what social media sometimes tells us. Watch the updated version of her “Beautiful” music video released last week that takes aim at the messages often delivered through social media that have negative effects on our body image and mental health. (Click here to view)

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October 23, 2022
Rape accuser testifies against filmmaker Paul Haggis

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NEW YORK — He was a famous moviemaker. She was a publicist working a film premiere where he was a VIP guest. He’d offered her a lift home and then invited her to his apartment for a drink.

Once there screenwriter-director Paul Haggis abruptly tried to kiss her, backed her into his refrigerator, and had a question for her, accuser Haleigh Breest told a jury Thursday.

“Are you scared of me?” he asked, according to her testimony.

And so began, Breest said, a sexual assault that ended with the Oscar winner raping her. She’s suing him in a civil case that’s now on trial.

Haggis maintains the 2013 encounter was consensual, and his lawyer has argued that Breest called it rape because she’s out for money. She’s seeking unspecified damages.

In a steady, unsparing tone, Breest recounted what she said was a terrifying, painful attack that left her shocked and “really struggling to comprehend what had happened.”

“I couldn’t understand how somebody who seemed like a nice guy would do that,” she said.

As she spoke without looking at him, Haggis, 69, watched largely expressionlessly, sometimes rubbing his bearded chin or taking notes.

The Associated Press generally doesn’t identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Breest has done.

Breest, now 36, said she first met the “Crash” and “Million Dollar Baby” screenwriter in 2012 at a premiere afterparty where she was working.

Breest and Haggis exchanged occasional professional emails and party chitchat, she said, over the months before their paths crossed again at another premiere party she worked on Jan. 31, 2013.

A tipsy — but not stumbling drunk — Breest accepted the filmmaker’s offer of a ride, and then his invitation for a drink, she told jurors. She said she suggested someplace public instead, but he pushed for his apartment in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood, and she didn’t want to offend one of her employer’s red-carpet guests.

“But just so you know,” she testified that she told him, “I’m not sleeping in SoHo tonight.”

Yet Haggis’ advances began as soon as she put her bags down in his loft’s open kitchen, Breest said.

“You’ve been flirting with me for months,” he soon said, according to her.

“I don’t even know you,” she said she replied.

Breest said she dodged him and thought she’d politely defused the situation when he started showing her the apartment. But when they reached a guest bedroom, Haggis “became aggressive very quickly,” pushed her onto the bed and pulled off her tights and clothes as she tried to keep them on and told him to stop, she said.

Then, she said, he forced her to perform oral sex and wanted intercourse. She said she asked to take a shower as a subtle way to get out of the room, but he followed her there, then steered her back to the guest bedroom and made a further series of unwanted sexual moves that culminated in rape.

“I was like a trapped animal. There was nothing for me to do,” she said.

Breest said she passed out soon afterward, awoke alone on the bed the next morning and left without seeing Haggis again.

That day and in the ensuing months, Breest said, she told a half-dozen friends that she had been sexually assaulted, naming Haggis to some. She said she informed her boss the next year that Haggis had done something bad to her.

Breest didn’t tell police. She testified that she was scared and concerned about how her allegation would be handled.

Nor did she confront Haggis when he emailed her the day after the encounter to ask about photos from the premiere. Nor at subsequent screenings or in emails, some of which she initiated, about social events and movie matters.

“I didn’t want my work experience to be awkward,” she testified, so “I pretended like everything was normal. And it wasn’t.”

Behind the scenes, Breest anguished over what had happened and what to do, according to text and other electronic messages shown in court.

The communications, sent to friends, veer from frank descriptions of forced sex — “and I kept saying no” — to moments when she seemed to downplay it (“it sort of is” rape).

At times she said she wanted to avoid Haggis, at others she mused about seeing him again to try to regain some equanimity and “not be the victim.” The messages are salted with lighthearted texting slang — “lol,” “omg,” “haha” — that Breest says were attempts to use humor to defang a tough subject.

Haggis hasn’t testified thus far, and his lawyers haven’t yet gotten their chance to question Breest. In an opening statement, defense attorney Priya Chaudhry pointed to some of the accuser’s messages — such as a comment that she needs “to get something out of this” — to question her credibility.

Breest said her remarks just reflect her horror at being victimized, her desire to seize back a sense of control in her life, and her confusion at how someone she thought well of could violently turn on her.

Now, she said, she understands that night.

“I thought I was getting a ride home. I agreed to have a drink. What happened never should have happened,” she told the jury. “And it had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with him and his actions.”

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October 20, 2022
Jury finds Kevin Spacey not liable for battery | CNN

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In a victory for Kevin Spacey, a New York jury on Thursday afternoon found him not liable for battery on allegations he picked up actor Anthony Rapp and briefly laid on top of him in a bed after a party in 1986.

Jurors deliberated for about an hour, and concluded Rapp did not prove that Spacey “touched a sexual or intimate part” of Rapp.

Judge Lewis Kaplan formally dismissed the case. Attorneys seated on either side of Spacey immediately put their hands on his back when the verdict was read.

“We are very grateful to the jury for seeing through these false allegations,” Jennifer Keller, one of Spacey’s attorneys, said later while leaving court. Spacey did not speak to reporters when he left.

Best known for his role in “Star Trek: Discovery,” Rapp had alleged that in 1986, Spacey, then 26, invited Rapp, then 14, to his Manhattan home where he picked Rapp up, laid him down on his bed, grabbed his buttocks and pressed his groin into Rapp’s body without his consent.

The judge dismissed Rapp’s claim of assault before the trial started and dismissed his claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress after Rapp’s attorneys rested his case, leaving the jury to decide only the battery claim. Under New York law, battery is touching another person, without their consent, in a way that a reasonable person would find offensive.

CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson saw Thursday’s verdict as a huge win for Spacey, one that demonstrates a jury can tune out the noise involving a celebrity’s alleged reported misdeeds in the Me Too movement and evaluate a case based on the facts presented in court.

The case was also problematic legally, with two counts tossed by the court – assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress – leaving the jury to consider only the battery claim, Jackson said.

“The jury clearly did not accept factual assertions made by Rapp, thereby not finding him credible,” Jackson added.

But the win was a “Pyrrhic victory” for Spacey given other charges that “hang over him, including criminal charges in the UK,” CNN Legal Analyst Paul Callan said.

“Spacey has now notched two victories in sex abuse charges against him including this case and the one previously dropped in Nantucket,” Callan said. “He, however, faces an uphill battle facing other accusers and more serious criminal charges in UK.”

Spacey was charged with four counts of sexual assault against three men and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent by Britain’s Crown Prosecuting Service in May. Spacey has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

In the Nantucket case, a man alleged Spacey groped him when he was an 18-year-old busboy at a restaurant. Spacey had pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors eventually dropped the criminal case against Spacey after the accuser pleaded the Fifth on the witness stand when being questioned about his missing cellphone and about whether he deleted text messages.

In his closing argument, Rapp’s attorney Richard Steigman suggested Spacey twisted his testimony at trial to suit his defense, pointing to Spacey’s 2017 apology to Rapp when he first came forward.

“Don’t listen to what I said in real time. I’m defending a lawsuit now. Listen to me now. I’ve got it straightened out,” Steigman said, mocking Spacey’s attempt to convince the jury he was coerced by publicists to give the statement he testified he now regrets.

Steigman called Spacey’s testimony rehearsed in comparison to the raw testimony given by his client.

“When you’re rehearsed, and a world class actor and you’re following the script and following the testimony of someone else, you can take that stand and be perfectly polished,” Steigman said. “When you’re merely coming to court coming forward and telling the truth of your experience, especially one like this that’s a little bit complicated.”

Steigman also batted down the defense argument that Rapp wanted to out Spacey as gay.

“The point of the story is not that Kevin Spacey is gay. It’s that he sexually abused him when he was 14. That’s what he’s sharing with people, he’s sharing his experience – nothing more, nothing less. Where’s the proof that he said to any media outlet, you know, Kevin Spacey is gay, you really should run with this?”

Keller, Spacey’s attorney, began her closing argument by addressing the shadow of the Me Too movement on the case, stating that Rapp “hitched his wagon” to the movement when he came forward.

“This isn’t a team sport where you’re either on the Me Too side, or you’re on the other side,” Keller told the jury. “This is a very different place. Our system requires evidence, proof, objective support for accusations provided to an impartial jury. However polarized as society may be today, it really should not have a place here.”

Keller suggested that Rapp cribbed his allegations against Spacey from a nearly identical scene from the Broadway show “Precious Sons,” which Rapp was performing in with Ed Harris in 1986 at the time of the alleged incident.

“We’re here because Mr. Rapp has falsely alleged abuse that never occurred at a party that was never held in a room that did not exist,” she said.

Spacey’s attorney concluded her remarks by asking the jury not to compromise their verdict by finding Spacey liable of battery but only awarding Rapp a single dollar in damages.

“You’re here to be judges of the facts. Did it happen? It didn’t happen. One penny is too much for something that did not happen,” Keller said.

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October 20, 2022
Trump appears for deposition in E. Jean Carroll lawsuit | CNN Politics

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Former President Donald Trump appeared Wednesday for a deposition as part of the defamation lawsuit brought by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.

Last week, a federal judge cleared the way for Trump’s testimony saying the former President had already taken steps to delay the case and he “should not be able to run out the clock.”

“We’re pleased that on behalf of our client, E. Jean Carroll, we were able to take Donald Trump’s deposition today. We are not able to comment further,” said a spokesperson for Kaplan Hecker & Fink, the law firm representing Carroll.

Lawyers for Trump have not responded to a request for comment.

It is not clear what Trump said during the deposition, which was taken at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Carroll sued Trump in 2019 for defamation after he denied her claim that he raped her in a New York department store in the mid-1990s. She was scheduled to sit for her deposition last Friday.

The legal stakes for Trump were recently raised when Carroll said she intends to sue him next month under a new New York State law that allows victims of sexual assault to sue years after the attack. His testimony in the defamation case could be used in a future lawsuit.

The defamation case has been in legal limbo for over a year.

Trump and the Justice Department argued Trump was a federal employee and his statements denying Carroll’s allegations were made in response to reporters’ questions while he was at the White House. They argued the Justice Department should be substituted as the defendant, which, because the government cannot be sued for defamation, would end the lawsuit.

Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled against Trump and DOJ. They appealed. Last month a federal appeals court in New York ruled that Trump was a federal employee when he denied Carroll’s claim of rape and sexual assault.

However, the federal appeals court asked the Washington, DC, appeals court to determine if Trump was acting within the scope of his employment when he made the allegedly defamatory statements. If the DC court finds in favor of Trump, then the Justice Department would likely be substituted as a defendant and the case dismissed. The DC appeals court has not yet taken up the matter and it is unclear if or when they will.

This year Trump was ordered by a New York State judge to sit for a deposition with the New York attorney general’s office. Trump refused to answer questions, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Last month the New York attorney general’s office filed a $250 million lawsuit against Trump, his eldest children and the Trump Organization for allegedly defrauding lenders and insurers through false financial statements. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and said the lawsuit was politically motivated.

In civil cases if someone declines to answer questions the jury is allowed to apply an adverse inference against the person when deciding their potential liability.

Last year Trump sat for a deposition for a civil lawsuit brought by protestors who claimed they were injured outside of Trump Tower during his first presidential campaign. He is also expected to testify in another civil lawsuit relating to a marketing campaign by the end of the month.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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October 20, 2022
Woman testifies Danny Masterson raped, choked her in 2003

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LOS ANGELES — A woman broke down on the witness stand Wednesday while giving graphic testimony about a 2003 night when she said she emerged from unconsciousness to find actor Danny Masterson raping her.

She is the first of three women who say Masterson raped them to testify during his Los Angeles trial. She said at one point she grabbed Masterson’s hair to try to pull him away, but he shoved a pillow into her face.

“I was smothered,” she said, crying. “I could not breathe.”

She said she later grabbed his throat to try to push him away but he held her down and began choking her.

Asked by the prosecutor what she was thinking at the time, she replied: “That he was going to kill me. That I was going to die.”

By this point she was weeping. After she said “I can’t do this,” the judge called for a brief break and a court victims’ services advocate comforted her at the witness stand.

When she took the stand again, she testified that Masterson pulled a gun from a drawer in his bedside table and ordered her to be quiet when there was a commotion — and voices — at the door.

She said that, throughout the night, she passed in and out of consciousness despite drinking only about half of a fruity vodka drink Masterson had handed her.

Masterson, 46, who at the time was a star of the Fox TV sitcom “That ’70s show,” has pleaded not guilty to three counts of rape.

In brief cross-examination before the trial ended for the day, questions from Masterson’s attorney Phillip Cohen suggested that he would challenge her over differences in the story she told police in 2004, which did not lead to charges for Masterson, and her testimony Wednesday.

She conceded that she omitted elements of the story at the time, “to protect people.”

At a preliminary hearing last year, a previous defense lawyer for Masterson emphasized that there was no mention of a gun in the LAPD report from 2004, and contended the three women had each reframed consensual sex as rape.

The Associated Press does not name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly.

Masterson, sitting at the defense table in a suit, looked toward the woman as she testified, but had no visible reaction. His wife, actor and model Bijou Phillips, sat behind him at the front of the gallery, along with several of his family members and friends.

The woman, then 27, was the best friend of Masterson’s assistant and part of the same social circle of Church of Scientology members.

She testified that she had only intended to go to Masterson’s house to pick up a set of keys, and that her relationship had been uneasy with Masterson since the two had sex several months earlier, an incident she told police was consensual in 2004 but later decided she hadn’t consented to. She went back to police in 2016.

In his cross-examination, Cohen asked whether it was her position in 2004 that Masterson had raped her the first time they had sex, and she answered “no.” Asked whether that was her position now, she also answered “no.” Court adjourned before he could press her further.

All three of Masterson’s accusers were members of the Church of Scientology at the time they say they were raped, but have since left. Masterson remains a member. Judge Charlaine Olmedo said before the trial that she would not allow Scientology to become a de facto defendant, but would allow limited discussion of it.

Before the woman took the stand Wednesday after beginning her testimony Tuesday, the judge warned her not to stray too far into discussions of the religion, an issue she had already admonished Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller about.

Scientology still came up. The woman testified that some of her mutual friends filed so-called “knowledge reports” signaling their unhappiness with her after she told them about the initial incident with Masterson, and she was summoned by an ethics officer who forced her to make peace with him and take responsibility.

“You can never be a victim,” the woman said. “No matter what happens, you’re always responsible.”

Asked if she still feared retaliation from anyone for coming forward about Masterson, she replied “about half this courtroom.”

She testified that she signed a non-disclosure agreement with Masterson in 2004, and accepted $400,000 over the course of a year, because the church was going to tar her as a “suppressive person” otherwise. She said she had violated the agreement “about 50 times” since signing it.

She testified that she had only expected to be at Masterson’s house, a social hub for their friend circle, for a few minutes.

Masterson’s is one of several trials with #MeToo themes going on simultaneously on from coast to coast. They include Harvey Weinstein’s second rape and sexual assault trial just down the hall, and civil trials in New York for actor Kevin Spacey and for screenwriter and director Paul Haggis, who are both being sued for sexual assault.

Scientology also has a major role in the trial of Haggis, a church dissident who is being allowed to argue that the institution is behind the allegations against him.

———

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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October 20, 2022
Case vs. Paul Haggis joins month of Hollywood #MeToo trials

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NEW YORK — Jurors got their first look Wednesday at a lawsuit that pits Oscar-winning moviemaker Paul Haggis against a publicist who alleges that he raped her, the latest in a lineup of #MeToo-era trials involving Hollywood figures this fall.

Opening statements in the civil case against Haggis began Wednesday in a New York state court. The federal court next door is housing a trial in a lawsuit accusing Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey of sexual assault. In Los Angeles, former film mogul Harvey Weinstein and “That ’70s Show” actor Danny Masterson are fighting criminal rape charges at separate trials down the hall from each other (Weinstein is already serving a 23-year sentence on a New York conviction). All of the men deny the allegations.

The confluence of trials is a coincidence, but it makes for something of a #MeToo moment five years after allegations against Weinstein triggered a dam break of sexual misconduct accusations in Hollywood and beyond and catalyzed an ongoing movement to demand accountability.

“We’re still very early on in this time of reckoning,” said Debra Katz, a Washington-based lawyer who has represented many sexual assault accusers. She isn’t involved in any of the four trials.

In an unusual turn, both Haggis’ case and Masterson’s also have become forums for scrutinizing the Church of Scientology, though from different perspectives.

In the case against Haggis, publicist Haleigh Breest claims that the “Crash” and “Million Dollar Baby” screenwriter forced her to perform oral sex and raped her after she reluctantly agreed to a drink in his apartment after a 2013 movie premiere. Haggis maintains that the encounter was consensual.

Breest never went to police, but soon after the encounter, she gave friends an account of what happened, sending text messages that both her lawyers and Haggis’ attorneys say bolster their case.

“He was so rough and aggressive. Never, ever again … And I kept saying no,” read one text that her lawyer Zoe Salzman highlighted in her opening statement. She said the encounter shattered Breest emotionally, but that she didn’t go public until after the allegations against Weinstein burst into view in 2017 and Haggis condemned him.

“The hypocrisy of it made her blood boil,” Salzman said.

Haggis attorney Priya Chaudhry pointed jurors to other parts of the same text exchange, saying that Breest added “lol” — for “laughing out loud” — when she mentioned performing oral sex, and that she said she wanted to be alone with Haggis again to “see what happens.”

“I don’t care too much. I just hope I don’t now have enemies” professionally, she wrote, according to Chaudhry. She argued that Breest falsely accused the filmmaker of rape to get a payout.

“Paul Haggis is relieved that he finally gets his day in court,” Chaudhry said.

Only Breest is suing Haggis, but jurors will also hear from four other women who told her lawyers that Haggis sexually assaulted them, or attempted to do so, in separate encounters between 1996 and 2015. The jury won’t hear, however, that Italian authorities this summer investigated a sexual assault allegation against him, which he denied.

“Mr. Haggis used his storytelling skills and his fame to prey on, to manipulate and to attack vulnerable young women in the film industry,” Salzman told jurors. “He doesn’t stop when women say no.”

Haggis’ attorney argued there’s another explanation for the allegations.

Promising “circumstantial evidence,” she suggested that Scientologists ginned up Breest’s lawsuit to discredit him after he split with the church and became a prominent detractor.

The church denies any involvement, and Breest’s lawyers have called the notion a baseless conspiracy theory that lacks proof of any connection between the religion and Haggis’ accusers.

“Scientology has nothing to do with this case,” Salzman told jurors. The church has said the same.

Scientology is a system of beliefs, teachings and rituals focused on spiritual betterment. Science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard’s 1950 book “Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health” is a foundational text.

The religion has gained a following among such celebrities as Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. But some high-profile members have broken with it, including Haggis, singer Lisa Marie Presley and actor Leah Remini. In a memoir and documentary series, Remini said the church uses manipulative and abusive tactics to indoctrinate followers into putting its goals above all else, and she maintained that it worked to discredit critics who spoke out.

The church has vociferously disputed the claims.

Haggis says he was Scientologist for three decades before leaving the church in 2009. He slammed it as “a cult” in a 2011 New Yorker article that later informed a book and an HBO documentary, and he foreshadowed that retribution would come in the form of “a scandal that looks like it has nothing to do with the church.”

The church has repeatedly said that Haggis lied about its practices to grab the spotlight for himself and his career. The church didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Masterson’s lawyer, meanwhile, is asking jurors to disregard the actor’s affiliation with Scientology, though prosecutors say the church discouraged two of his three accusers from going to authorities. All three are former members.

Haggis got his Hollywood start as as TV writer and moved on to movies including “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash,” which won back-to-back Academy Awards for best picture in the mid-2000s. The Canada-born filmmaker also directed and was a producer of “Crash,” which garnered him and Bobby Moresco the best original screenplay Oscar in 2006.

In a sworn statement last year, Haggis said his career nosedived and his finances cratered after Breest sued him in 2017.

The Associated Press does not usually name people alleging sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, as Breest has done. She is seeking unspecified damages.

———

Associated Press writer Deepa Bharath contributed from Los Angeles.

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October 19, 2022
Missouri residents say police dismissed reports of missing Black women, but a month later a woman says she was kidnapped and believes there were other victims | CNN

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Weeks after residents of a Kansas City, Missouri neighborhood said they complained to police that Black women were missing, authorities are facing community backlash after a Black woman says a White man held her captive.

A 22-year-old woman, identified by police in court in a probable cause form as T.J., escaped on Oct. 7 from the Excelsior Springs, Missouri, home of Timothy Marrion Haslett, Jr. – a man whom she accuses of kidnapping and raping her after he “picked her up” in Kansas City in early September.

Excelsior Springs is part of the Kansas City metropolitan area.

“It was readily apparent that she had been held against her will for a significant period of time,” Lt. Ryan Dowdy of the Excelsior Springs police told reporters outside Haslett’s home. He said investigators are still processing evidence taken from Haslett’s home and that the investigation is ongoing.

According to the probable cause form, T.J. said she escaped from a room in the man’s basement. Haslett’s neighbors told KMBC and KCTV that TJ went to multiple homes to seek help while Haslett took his child to school. T.J. also said there were other women, but police have found no evidence of others so far.

The woman’s escape comes weeks after community leaders said they told authorities that they believed a potential predator was targeting Black women in the Kansas City area. Authorities from the Kansas City Police Department initially called the reports of a serial killer targeting Black women “completely unfounded,” according to a statement published by the Kansas City Star newspaper.

T.J. was wearing latex lingerie, a metal collar with a padlock, and had duct tape around her neck when she escaped, according to the probable cause form.

Lisa Johnson, a neighbor of Haslett whom T.J. encountered during her escape, told KMBC that T.J. feared Haslett would kill them if she called the police. Johnson told affiliate KCTV she called police after TJ ran to another home for help. Ciara Tharp told CNN affiliate KCTV that her grandmother let T.J. in when she came to her house for help.

Tharpe says once her grandmother let T.J. inside, she said that Haslett had kidnapped her and killed her friends, according to KCTV. The probable cause form identifies the woman who contacted police as Lisa Cashatt. Cadaver dogs were seen searching Haslett’s backyard, KMBC reports, but investigators have yet to find other missing people in the man’s home.

“We have no further victims that we are aware of at this specific moment in time,” Dowdy told CNN affiliate KCTV. “She made mention of other victims, but there’s no signs of them at this time that we have found.”

Haslett was arrested on Oct. 7 and was charged with first-degree rape, first-degree kidnapping and second-degree assault. He’s being held on a $500,000 bond. His bail reduction hearing was originally scheduled for Tuesday but has been postponed to Nov. 8 per his attorney’s request. Haslett’s public defender told CNN they have no comment.

“We know certain things because we have charged an individual in this horrific crime but by no means do I know all the details,” Robert Sanders, Clay County, Missouri, Prosecuting Attorney told to CNN affiliate KMBC. “We need more information.”

The Kansas City Police Department said that “in September we were made aware of a social media post claiming there had been four black women murdered in Kansas City and three black women missing from 85th Street/Prospect Avenue. To date, we have had no reports of missing black females from that area.”

“In order to begin a missing persons investigation, someone would need to file a report with our department identifying the missing party,” said the Excelsior Springs Police Department in a statement to CNN.

The department said it has activated the Clay County Investigative Squad Task Force, which includes members from other local law enforcement organizations, for its ongoing criminal investigation.

But residents and missing persons advocates say T.J.’s account of what happened to her, and Haslett’s arrest, underscore the indifference by some in law enforcement when it comes to reports of missing Black people.

Bishop Tony Caldwell was among the community leaders who first raised concerns about missing Black women in the Kansas City area. Caldwell has been serving the community for years and said that T.J.’s case is part of a much larger problem of Black people being abducted and written off by law enforcement.

“If that young lady would not have escaped, we wouldn’t be talking today,” Caldwell told CNN. He said that when family and friends come forward and tell authorities that their loved ones are missing, they’re often written off as ‘runaways’ and not taken seriously.

It is unclear whether T.J. was ever reported missing.

In response to the community members’ criticism, the Excelsior Springs Police Department also said, “We have checked with law enforcement agencies in the Kansas City metropolitan area and there are no current missing persons reports that correspond with the evidence examined so far in this investigation.”

Caldwell told CNN that on Monday night, Kansas City area community leaders met for five hours with residents to discuss their anger about the case and what they perceive as law enforcement’s indifference and the vulnerability of Black women and girls. He told CNN that about 50 people attended the meeting.

He said community leaders don’t want to be perceived as attacking the police. But more important to them than avoiding that perception is knowing that their concerns are taken seriously by law enforcement.

“We need cooperation [from law enforcement] to get people home. We can argue over terminology all day long, but we gotta get people home safe.”

Caldwell said he and other community leaders’ concerns were dismissed by authorities when they initially alleged that young women were being abducted from Prospect Avenue, an area of Kansas City notorious for sex workers. Caldwell said that most of the women working in that area are Black.

“They don’t talk to the police department because the police never believe them, or they believe that the police aren’t gonna do anything about it,” Caldwell told CNN, adding that police never go to Prospect Avenue to investigate missing person reports but instead frequently visit the area to make arrests for prostitution.

While TJ said she was kidnapped by Haslett near Prospect Avenue, CNN has not been able to ascertain if she was a sex worker.

CNN reached out to the Kansas City Police Department for comment on the community leaders’ concerns.

Caldwell says it’s time authorities take reports of missing women seriously, even if the person reporting it has limited information about them.

“People use street names all the time, and just because you don’t have 99% of the information about a person doesn’t mean that they’re still not worthy of being looked for,” Caldwell said.

Derrica Wilson, co-founder and CEO of the Black and Missing Foundation, Inc., agreed with the sentiment that law enforcement isn’t taking these cases as seriously as they should.

“Quite frankly, there’s no sense of urgency in finding them, because there’s the perception that they ran away. So, whatever happens to him or her, they brought it on themselves,” Wilson told CNN.

“And when it’s adults, law enforcement likes to associate their disappearance with some sort of criminal activity, and it really desensitizes and dehumanizes the fact that these are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters. They are valuable members of our community, and they deserve the same resources in finding them.”

Despite only making up 13% of the United States population, Black people comprise 34% of missing person cases in 2021, according to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center.

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October 18, 2022
“That ’70s Show” actor Danny Masterson on trial on 3 rape charges

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Danny Masterson, former star of the long-running sitcom “That ’70s Show,” is about to face three women in court who say he raped them two decades ago at a trial whose key figures are all current or former members of the Church of Scientology.

Opening statements could begin as early as Tuesday in the Los Angeles trial of the 46-year-old Masterson, and while a judge has expressed her determination not to have the church become the center of the proceedings, it will inevitably loom large.

Masterson is charged with raping the women between 2001 and 2003 in his home, which functioned as a social hub when he was at the height of his fame. Masterson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

One of the women had been Masterson’s longtime girlfriend. Another was a longtime friend, and the third a newer acquaintance.

All three were members of the Church of Scientology, as Masterson still is. All three accusers have since left, and they said the church’s insistence that it deal internally with problems between members made them hesitant at first to go to authorities.

“This is not going to become a trial on Scientology,” Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo asserted at a pre-trial hearing. But she said she would allow its discussion as a reason why the women delayed reporting to authorities.

Testimony at a preliminary hearing last year to determine whether Masterson should go to trial last year included frequent use of Scientology jargon that lawyers had to ask the witnesses to explain. And the trial’s witness list is full of members and former members of the church, which has a strong presence in Los Angeles and has counted many famous figures among its members. The list includes former member Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley and former wife of Michael Jackson.

Masterson’s initial attorney in the case,Thomas Mesereau, emphasized his client’s Scientology connections, saying his arrest was the result of anti-religious bias from police and prosecutors. The lawyer attempted unsuccessfully to subpoena alleged communications between the accusers and actor Leah Remini, a former Scientologist who has become on of the church’s foremost detractors, authoring a book and hosting a documentary series.

Masterson’s lead attorney for the trial, Phillip Cohen, appears to be taking the opposite approach, seeking in a pretrial motion to minimize mentions of the institution, which has garnered much negative publicity in recent years because of prominent dissidents like Remini. Some potential jurors have been dismissed based on their opinions of the church.

“I think leaving the Church of Scientology out of it is a good plan,” said Emily D. Baker, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor who now works as a legal analyst and podcaster. “I don’t think the general public has an overwhelmingly positive view, I think there is a lot of skepticism.”

Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller, the lead prosecutor, may want to tread carefully on the subject too.

“It can feel heavy handed when you have the government bringing someone’s religion into a prosecution,” said Baker, who is not involved in the case. “I think there is a careful line to be considered. The church is not on trial, you don’t want to give jurors a sense that you’re going after it.”

Masterson is charged with three counts of rape by force or fear, which could mean up to 45 years in prison if if he’s convicted.

At last year’s preliminary hearing, one woman testified that they were five years into a relationship when she woke to Masterson raping her one night in 2001.

Another, a onetime friend of Masterson’s who had been born into Scientology, testified that, in 2003, he had taken her upstairs from the hot tub at his Los Angeles home and raped her in his bedroom.

The third woman said Masterson raped her on a night in 2003 after texting her to come to his house. She testified she had set boundaries and was clear there was to be no sex.

One of the women, Masterson’s friend, unhappy with the way the Scientology ethics board handled her complaint about him, filed a police report in 2004 that didn’t result in charges. In 2016, she connected and shared stories with the woman who says she was raped while in a relationship with Masterson. Each would file a police report that year. Masterson’s former girlfriend said she did so after telling her story to her husband, who helped her understand that she had been raped. The third woman went to police in 2017.

Masterson’s then-attorneys suggested in their cross-examination of the women that all had retroactively reframed consensual sex as rape, and said the age of the incidents made accurate memories impossible.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they were victims of sexual abuse unless they come forward publicly.

Masterson was one of the first Hollywood figures to be prosecuted in the #MeToo era. His is one of several high-profile sexual assault cases that have gone to trial around the fifth anniversary of the reporting of accusations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, which transformed the #MeToo movement into an international reckoning.

Weinstein’s second rape and sexual assault trial — he’s already been convicted in New York — is happening simultaneously, just down the hall from Masterson’s. In New York, civil trials have begun for actor Kevin Spacey and for screenwriter and director Paul Haggis, who are both being sued for sexual assault.

Haggis is himself a Scientology dissident, and the judge in that case is allowing him to argue that the church is behind the allegations against him.

From 1998 until 2006, Masterson starred as Steven Hyde on Fox’s “That ’70s Show,” which made stars of Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis and Topher Grace and is getting an upcoming Netflix reboot with “That ’90s Show.”

Masterson had reunited with Kutcher on the Netflix comedy “The Ranch” but was written off the show when an LAPD investigation was revealed in December 2017.

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October 18, 2022
Kevin Spacey finishes testifying in civil sexual misconduct trial | CNN

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CNN
—

After about five hours on the witness stand, Kevin Spacey finished testifying in his defense in a sexual misconduct trial, stemming from allegations made by actor Anthony Rapp.

Rapp, best known for his role in “Star Trek: Discovery,” claims that in 1986, Spacey, then 26, invited Rapp, then 14, to his Manhattan home where he picked Rapp up, laid him down on his bed, grabbed his buttocks and pressed his groin into Rapp’s body without his consent.

He is suing Spacey for battery.

Spacey grew emotional multiple times during his testimony, including when he discussed a statement he put out shortly after Rapp went public with his allegations in 2017 to BuzzFeed.

Spacey has said in his testimony that his publicity team at the time advised him that he’d be labeled a victim blamer if he pushed back.

“I was being encouraged to apologize and I’ve learned a lesson which is never apologize for something you didn’t do,” Spacey testified on Monday. “I regret my entire statement.”

On Tuesday, Spacey added: “It was beyond horrifying that I was being accused of doing something that in my heart I knew I had not done.”

Rapp’s attorney Richard Steigman pushed Spacey to take accountability for the statement despite whatever advice he may have taken from his team.

“The buck stops with you, right, sir?” he asked.

“It does in the end,” Spacey said.

The next witness called by Spacey’s attorneys will be Alexander Bardey, a psychiatrist.

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October 18, 2022
’70s Show’ actor Danny Masterson on trial on 3 rape charges

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LOS ANGELES — Danny Masterson, former star of the long-running sitcom “That ’70s Show,” is about to face three women in court who say he raped them two decades ago at a trial whose key figures are all current or former members of the Church of Scientology.

Opening statements could begin as early as Tuesday in the Los Angeles trial of the 46-year-old Masterson, and while a judge has expressed her determination not to have the church become the center of the proceedings, it will inevitably loom large.

Masterson is charged with raping the women between 2001 and 2003 in his home, which functioned as a social hub when he was at the height of his fame. Masterson has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

One of the women had been Masterson’s longtime girlfriend. Another was a longtime friend, and the third a newer acquaintance.

All three were members of the Church of Scientology, as Masterson still is. All three accusers have since left, and they said the church’s insistence that it deal internally with problems between members made them hesitant at first to go to authorities.

“This is not going to become a trial on Scientology,” Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo asserted at a pre-trial hearing. But she said she would allow its discussion as a reason why the women delayed reporting to authorities.

Testimony at a preliminary hearing last year to determine whether Masterson should go to trial last year included frequent use of Scientology jargon that lawyers had to ask the witnesses to explain. And the trial’s witness list is full of members and former members of the church, which has a strong presence in Los Angeles and has counted many famous figures among its members. The list includes former member Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley and former wife of Michael Jackson.

Masterson’s initial attorney in the case, Thomas Mesereau, emphasized his client’s Scientology connections, saying his arrest was the result of anti-religious bias from police and prosecutors. The lawyer attempted unsuccessfully to subpoena alleged communications between the accusers and actor Leah Remini, a former Scientologist who has become on of the church’s foremost detractors, authoring a book and hosting a documentary series.

Masterson’s lead attorney for the trial, Phillip Cohen, appears to be taking the opposite approach, seeking in a pretrial motion to minimize mentions of the institution, which has garnered much negative publicity in recent years because of prominent dissidents like Remini. Some potential jurors have been dismissed based on their opinions of the church.

“I think leaving the Church of Scientology out of it is a good plan,” said Emily D. Baker, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor who now works as a legal analyst and podcaster. “I don’t think the general public has an overwhelmingly positive view, I think there is a lot of skepticism.”

Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller, the lead prosecutor, may want to tread carefully on the subject too.

“It can feel heavy handed when you have the government bringing someone’s religion into a prosecution,” said Baker, who is not involved in the case. “I think there is a careful line to be considered. The church is not on trial, you don’t want to give jurors a sense that you’re going after it.”

Masterson is charged with three counts of rape by force or fear, which could mean up to 45 years in prison if if he’s convicted.

At last year’s preliminary hearing, one woman testified that they were five years into a relationship when she woke to Masterson raping her one night in 2001.

Another, a onetime friend of Masterson’s who had been born into Scientology, testified that, in 2003, he had taken her upstairs from the hot tub at his Los Angeles home and raped her in his bedroom.

The third woman said Masterson raped her on a night in 2003 after texting her to come to his house. She testified she had set boundaries and was clear there was to be no sex.

One of the women, Masterson’s friend, unhappy with the way the Scientology ethics board handled her complaint about him, filed a police report in 2004 that didn’t result in charges. In 2016, she connected and shared stories with the woman who says she was raped while in a relationship with Masterson. Each would file a police report that year. Masterson’s former girlfriend said she did so after telling her story to her husband, who helped her understand that she had been raped. The third woman went to police in 2017.

Masterson’s then-attorneys suggested in their cross-examination of the women that all had retroactively reframed consensual sex as rape, and said the age of the incidents made accurate memories impossible.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they were victims of sexual abuse unless they come forward publicly.

Masterson was one of the first Hollywood figures to be prosecuted in the #MeToo era. His is one of several high-profile sexual assault cases that have gone to trial around the fifth anniversary of the reporting of accusations against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, which transformed the #MeToo movement into an international reckoning.

Weinstein’s second rape and sexual assault trial — he’s already been convicted in New York — is happening simultaneously, just down the hall from Masterson’s. In New York, civil trials have begun for actor Kevin Spacey and for screenwriter and director Paul Haggis, who are both being sued for sexual assault.

Haggis is himself a Scientology dissident, and the judge in that case is allowing him to argue that the church is behind the allegations against him.

From 1998 until 2006, Masterson starred as Steven Hyde on Fox’s “That ’70s Show,” which made stars of Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis and Topher Grace and is getting an upcoming Netflix reboot with “That ’90s Show.”

Masterson had reunited with Kutcher on the Netflix comedy “The Ranch” but was written off the show when an LAPD investigation was revealed in December 2017.

———

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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October 17, 2022
Suit over rape claim against filmmaker Haggis heads to trial

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NEW YORK — Opening statements are expected Wednesday in a civil case brought by a publicist who accused Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis of raping her almost a decade ago.

Jury selection began Monday in a Manhattan courtroom.

The lawsuit was filed in 2017 as a wave of sexual misconduct accusations against prominent men was propelling the #MeToo movement to new visibility. At least four other women subsequently alleged that Haggis, a screenwriter known for “Crash” and “Million Dollar Baby,” sexually assaulted them or tried to do so.

The New York lawsuit centers on publicist Haleigh Breest’s allegation that Haggis offered her a ride home from a movie premiere, invited her to his Manhattan apartment for a drink, rebuffed her suggestion that they go to a public bar instead, and then raped her at the apartment.

The filmmaker, who declined to comment as he left court Monday, maintains that the encounter was consensual.

His defense may also feature an allegation of sinister intrigue: His lawyers have suggested that the Church of Scientology engineered false accusations of sexual misdeeds to ruin Haggis, a former longtime member who became an outspoken critic.

The church has said it had no involvement in the allegations against Haggis, and his accuser’s lawyers have called it “a shameful and unsupported conspiracy theory unworthy of any trial proceeding.”

But Judge Sabrina Kraus ruled last month that Haggis’ lawyers can bring up Scientology, saying that “the jury is entitled to be informed of any possible motive (the) plaintiff may have and about the church’s efforts to discredit Haggis.”

No criminal charges were filed in connection with Breest’s accusation. Her lawsuit could mean a financial penalty, but not prison or probation for Haggis if she prevails. She is seeking unspecified damages.

After the suit was filed in late 2017, three other women told her attorneys and The Associated Press that Haggis had sexually assaulted them or attempted to do so. One said he had raped her. In response, his lawyer said Haggis “didn’t rape anybody.”

Kraus ruled last month that those three women can also testify as part of Breest’s effort to demonstrate Haggis’ “intent and lack of consent.”

Jurors won’t be allowed to hear that Haggis was detained for about two weeks at an Italian hotel in June while authorities investigated allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman there. Haggis was in Italy for an arts festival.

Haggis’ Italian attorney said the filmmaker was innocent, and in early July, a judge released him while prosecutors considered whether to pursue their inquiry. The judge concluded that Haggis hadn’t engaged in “constrictive violent behavior,” according to the newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The Associated Press does not usually name people alleging sexual assault unless they come forward publicly, as Breest has done.

The Canadian-born Haggis wrote “Million Dollar Baby” and “Crash,” which won back-to-back Academy Awards for best picture in the mid-2000s. He also directed and was a producer of “Crash,” which garnered him and Bobby Moresco the best original screenplay Oscar in 2006. The next year, Haggis was nominated in the same category for “Letters from Iwo Jima.”

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October 17, 2022
Mel Gibson can testify at Harvey Weinstein trial, judge says

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LOS ANGELES — Mel Gibson can testify about what he learned from one of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers, a judge ruled Friday in the rape and sexual assault trial of the former movie mogul.

The 66-year-old actor and director was one of many witnesses, and by far the best known, whose identities were revealed in Los Angeles Superior Court. The judge and attorneys had taken a break from jury selection for motions on what evidence will be allowed at the trial, and who can testify. The witness list for the trial is sealed.

Judge Lisa B. Lench ruled that Gibson can testify in support of his masseuse and friend, who will be known as Jane Doe #3 at the trial. Weinstein is accused of committing sexual battery by restraint against the woman, one of 11 rape and sexual assault counts in the trial against the 70-year-old.

Prosecutors said that after getting a massage from the woman at a California hotel in Beverly Hills in May of 2010, a naked Weinstein followed her into the bathroom and masturbated. Weinstein has pleaded not guilty, and denied any non-consensual sexual activity.

Weinstein’s attorneys argued against allowing Gibson to testify, saying that what he learned from the woman while getting a massage from her does not constitute a “fresh complaint” by the woman under the law by which Gibson would take the stand. A “fresh complaint” under California law allows the introduction of evidence of sexual assault or another crime if the victim reported it to someone else voluntarily and relatively promptly after it happened.

Prosecutors said that when Gibson brought up Weinstein’s name by chance, the woman had a traumatic response and Gibson understood from her that she had been sexually assaulted. Gibson did not remember the timing of the exchange, but the prosecution will use another witness, Allison Weiner, who remembers speaking to both Gibson and the woman in 2015.

Judge Lench said Gibson’s testimony will depend on how the accuser describes the exchange with him when she takes the stand, and she may choose to rule against it at that time.

Weinstein attorney Mark Werksman then argued that if Gibson does take the stand, the defense should be allowed to cross-examine him about widely publicized antisemitic remarks Gibson made during an arrest in 2006, and about racist statements to a girlfriend that were recorded and publicized in 2010.

Lench said a wider discussion of Gibson’s racism was not relevant to the trial, but she would allow questioning of whether he had a personal bias and animus toward Weinstein.

Werksman argued that Gibson had such a bias both because Weinstein is Jewish, and because Weinstein published a book that criticized the depiction of Jews in the Gibson-directed 2004 film, “The Passion of the Christ.”

“Any evidence of Mr. Gibson’s racism or antisemitism would give rise to a bias against my client, who challenged him,” Werksman said.

The lawyer briefly, and mistakenly, said he thought the movie won a best picture Academy Award, but Weinstein, whose films once dominated the Oscars, shook his head as he sat at the defense table.

“Sorry, my client would know better than I would,” Werksman said. “But it was an award-winning movie.”

The defense also argued that Gibson was trying to whitewash his image by focusing on Weinstein’s wrongdoing and asserting himself as a champion of the #MeToo movement.

The prosecution argued that Gibson had made no such suggestions about himself, and that at the time of the conversation with his masseuse he said he was discussing getting into a business deal with Weinstein, showing there was no such bias.

Deputy District Attorney Marlene Martinez called Gibson’s past comments “despicable,” but said they had no relevance for the narrow purposes he would be called to the stand for.

Gibson’s testimony raises the prospect of two of Hollywood’s once most powerful men, who have undergone public downfalls, facing each other in court.

An email seeking comment from a representative for Gibson was not immediately returned.

In one of several similar rulings Friday, Lench also found that “Melrose Place” actor Daphne Zuniga could testify in a similar capacity for a woman known at the trial as Jane Doe #4, whom Weinstein is accused of raping in 2004 or 2005.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused.

Weinstein is already serving a 23-year sentence for a 2020 conviction for rape and sexual assault in New York. The state’s highest court has agreed to hear his appeal in that case.

He was subsequently brought to Los Angeles for a trial that began Monday, five years after women’s stories about him gave massive momentum to the #MeToo movement.

Friday’s arguments came a day after the premiere of the film “She Said,” which tells the story of the work of the two New York Times reporters whose stories brought Weinstein down.

Weinstein’s attorneys previously sought to have the Los Angeles trial delayed because publicity from the film might taint the jury pool, but the judge denied their motion.

The trial is expected to last eight weeks. The judge and attorneys will return to the jury selection process on Monday morning, and opening statements are expected to begin on Oct. 24.

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

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October 14, 2022
NFL says Deshaun Watson status unchanged despite new lawsuit

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BEREA, Ohio — Suspended Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson’s status with the NFL has not been affected by a new civil lawsuit filed by another woman accusing him of sexual misconduct two years ago, the league said Friday.

Watson is serving an 11-game suspension for alleged sexual misconduct while he played for the Houston Texans. Two dozen women previously alleged he was sexually inappropriate during massage therapy sessions.

On Thursday, another woman filed a lawsuit in Texas that alleges Watson pressured her into performing a sex act after a massage in 2020. Watson has settled 23 of 24 previous lawsuits filed against him.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said the latest lawsuit does not impact Watson’s standing. The three-time Pro Bowler returned to the Browns’ training facility this week for the first time since his suspension began on Aug. 30.

“We will monitor developments in the newly-filed litigation; and any conduct that warrants further investigation or possible additional sanctions would be addressed within the Personal Conduct Policy,” McCarthy said in an email.

Watson is only permitted to attend meetings with the Browns and work out as he moves toward a possible return. He is not allowed to practice until Nov. 14, and as long as he fulfills conditions of his settlement with the league, he can return fully on Nov. 28 and would be eligible to play on Dec. 4 when the Browns visit the Texans.

Watson agreed to the 11-game ban, a $5 million fine and to undergo treatment and counseling by an independent group.

The Browns traded for Watson in March and signed him to a five-year, $240 million contract.

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More AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP—NFL

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October 14, 2022