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Jurors at Harvey Weinstein 's sex crimes retrial began hearing Monday from a woman who has said her consensual relationship with the ex-movie mogul descended into rape.
Jessica Mann is the last of three accusers to testify in the case, and the one with arguably the most complicated history with Weinstein. The 73-year-old has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and maintains he never sexually assaulted or raped anyone.
Mann, a cosmetologist and hairstylist, said she met Weinstein at a party in late 2012 or early 2013, when she was in her 20s and had recently moved to Los Angeles to try to launch an acting career.
She said he took an interest in her ambitions, and they had a few follow-up meetings that alternated between professional talk and boundary-pushing, particularly a request for a massage that Mann said she reluctantly gave the ex-studio boss. Weinstein invited her to awards-season parties including an Oscars bash that was such a new experience for a woman from a small town in Washington state that she attended in her high-school prom dress.
She said she wasn't attracted to Weinstein and initially refused his first sexual advance. It happened after he asked her up to a Beverly Hills hotel room under the pretext of getting a movie script in 2013, she said.
Mann said she ultimately succumbed to Weinstein performing oral sex on that occasion and pretended to enjoy it because Weinstein said he wouldn't let her leave until she let him “do something." Although she felt confused and “defiled,” she then agreed to consensual encounters with him, she said.
Mann said she worried about the professional consequences of alienating a powerful producer who had just dangled the prospect of movie roles for her and her roommate. She also recalled thinking that “if I was in a relationship, maybe it would feel different.”
“I just thought that maybe it would take the pain away,” Mann, 39, testified through tears as Weinstein watched from his seat at the defense table, with his right hand resting across his mouth.
Mann hasn't yet described the alleged rape in New York in 2013. Her testimony was due to continue Monday afternoon.
Weinstein’s lawyers haven’t yet had their turn to question her. During opening statements last month, defense attorney Arthur Aidala contended that Mann had a “a mutually beneficial relationship” with the former movie producer in hopes of “cutting the line” to an acting career.
“She manipulates the whole situation,” Aidala said at the time.
Once one of Hollywood's most influential producers, Weinstein became a symbol of sexual misconduct after media reports revealed allegations against him in 2017. The disclosures fueled the #MeToo movement's calls for accountability.
During the past five years, he was convicted of various sex crimes in both New York and California. But he’s on trial again because an appeals court found that his New York trial was tainted by prejudicial testimony and overturned that conviction. He’s charged with raping Mann and with forcing oral sex on two other women, separately, in 2006.
The Associated Press generally does not identify people who alleged they have been sexually assaulted unless they agree to be identified. Mann has done so.
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