American actress, Annabella Sciorra on Thursday testified in court that disgraced film producer, Harvey Weinstein allegdely raped 25 years ago.
In an emotional testimony, Annabella, who is one of the first of six women to testify, said that the movie mogul whom she first met at a party in Los Angeles sometime in 1990, raped and sexually assaulted her at her Manhattan apartment in the winter of 1993-1994.
According to her emotional testimony, Ms. Sciorra had dinner with Mr Weinstein in the winter of 1993-94. The Hollywood mogul then offered to drive the actress back to her Manhattan apartment.
Minutes later, she heard a knock at her door after Mr. Weinstein dropped her off. As soon as she opened the door, the producer shoved his way into her apartment and chased her to her bedroom where he pinned her to the bed during the alleged attack.
She said she tried to run to the bathroom, but “he kept coming at me. I felt overpowered because he was very big,” Sciorra told jurors.
“He got on top of me and he raped me,” she said. “He had intercourse with me and I was trying to fight him, but I couldn’t fight anymore because he had my hands locked.”
She said he then forcibly performed oral sex on her, telling her: “This is for you.”
“It was just so disgusting that my body started to shake in a way that was very unusual,” she said. “It was like a seizure or something.”
Ms. Sciorra said she confronted Mr Weinstein at a dinner weeks later. His response was “menacing”, she said. The producer allegedly leaned into her and said: “This remains between you and I.”
“It was threatening and I was afraid,” the actress testified.
She also claimed that Mr. Weinstein continued to harass her after the alleged rape.
At the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, Ms. Sciorra said she opened her hotel room door to find Mr. Weinstein standing in front of her, holding a bottle of baby oil and a movie tape.
She ran back inside her room and Mr Weinstein eventually left. “I got very scared,” she said.
When asked by prosecutor Joan Illuzzi why she did not call the police, Ms. Sciorra said she was “confused”.
“He was someone I knew,” she said. “I felt at the time that rape was something that happened in a back alleyway in a dark place.”
According to her, the attack left her traumatised that she began drinking and cutting herself, smearing her blood on to a wall.
Mr. Weinstein who has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 80 women also faces five charges related to the alleged rape of Jessica Mann and forced oral sex of Mimi Haleyi.
Three other women are expected to testify as “prior bad acts” witnesses in an attempt to show a pattern in Weinstein’s behavior.
The New York trial is expected to conclude in early March.
