The closely watched rape trial of Harvey Weinstein which sparked the #Metoo movement, is now moving at a faster pace than expected. Three more accusers are to testify against the disgraced movie tycoon before the end of the week.
What We Know:
- A hand full of secondary witnesses took the stand Tuesday to testify before a Manhattan jury in regards to the continuing investigation of Weinstein. The rest of the week could see two women testifying over allegations against Weinstein, called “Molineux” witnesses, followed by a key witness who says he raped her at a hotel in 2013.
- The second Molineux witness will testify next Monday, completing the bulk of a prosecution case that began last Wednesday when there was an expectation that the trial could stretch into March.
- As a means to corroborate Mimi Haleyi’s earlier testimony her former roommate, Elizabeth Entin, told jurors that the former Project Runway production assistant told her about the encounter shortly after it happened. She stated she explicitly told Haleyi, “That sounds like rape. Why don’t you call a lawyer?” but Haleyi didn’t want to pursue it or even talk about it.
- Weinstein’s lawyers have insisted any sexual assault accusations and encounters were consensual and zeroed in on his accusers’ continued contact with him after the alleged assaults.
- This past week, Sopranos actress Annabella Sciorra, made another accusation that Weinstein overpowered and raped her in her apartment in the mid-1990s. This could be used as another factor for prosecutors to use in order to prove Weinstein’s distasteful predatory behavior.
Sources indicate the Associated Press doesn’t usually identify people who say they have been victims of sexual assault, unless they agree to be named, such as Haleyi and Sciorra.
