California governor’s wife among accusers at Weinstein trial
LOS ANGELES — Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and actor who is married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, is among the accusers of Harvey Weinstein who will testify at his rape and sexual assault trial that began Monday, her attorney said.
“Like many other women, my client was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein at a purported business meeting that turned out to be a trap,” Newsom’s attorney Elizabeth Fegan said in a statement. “She intends to testify at his trial in order to seek some measure of justice for survivors, and as part of her life’s work to improve the lives of women.”
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Weinstein, the 70-year-old former movie mogul who is serving a 23-year prison sentence after a conviction in New York, has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of rape and sexual assault involving Newsom and four other women. All of them will testify as Jane Doe during the eight-week trial in a Los Angeles court, where jury selection began Monday.
The Associated Press does not normally name people who say they’ve been sexually abused, but Newsom agreed to be named through her attorney.
The news of her involvement was first reported by The Los Angeles Times.
Newsom, 48, appeared in small roles in dozens of films and television shows between 2002 and 2011. Recently she has directed documentaries including “The Great American Lie” in 2020 and “Fair Play” from this year. Both deal with gender in society.
She wrote about her experience with Weinstein in a 2017 essay in the Huffington Post after the New York Times and New Yorker stories made him a magnet of the #MeToo movement, but gave few details.
Weinstein, who is being held in a Los Angeles County jail, was brought Monday into court in a wheelchair through a side door, and climbed from it carefully into a seat next to one of his lawyers at the defense table. He was wearing a blue suit, which he is allowed to change into from his jail attire during the trial.
He stood with the rest of the room as the first panel of 67 prospective jurors were brought in, but sat down about halfway through the process. He waved at them from his seat when his lawyers introduced them.
