(l-r) Attorney Mark Werksman, Jennifer Siebel Newsom and Harvey Weinstein
Jennifer Siebel Newsom sparred with Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer Tuesday in cross-examination that lasted nearly all day, with the self-described “First Partner of California” saying “you’re putting words in my mouth, sir” as he pressed her about alleged inconsistent statements she’s made to authorities.
“I offered to talk to detectives initially to support other women. Not to be up here on the witness stand,” Siebel Newsom said, starting to cry.
“You’re the wife of the governor of California at the time, and you’re about to meet with the police and a deputy DA, and you didn’t think that the consequence of what you said was that you would be a victim in an indictment in a criminal indictment?” asked Mark Werksman, who’s defending Weinstein with his law partner, Alan Jackson.
“I didn’t think I would be considered a victim because I thought I was out of the time period,” Siebel Newsom said.
But prosecutors charged Weinstein with two crimes for a 2005 encounter that his lawyers say was consensual but Siebel Newsom described dramatically on Monday as a rape that was her “worst nightmare” and “felt like The Twilight Zone” and “an out-of-body experience.” She retook the stand Tuesday morning, with Werksman pushing an aggressive tone as he questioned her all morning and into the afternoon.
At one point, Siebel Newsom told Werksman, “I feel like you’re jumping around,” and Werksman answered, “I feel like I’m asking you questions and you’re not answering them.” At another point, she told him, “Your energy is just so intense.”
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench occasionally instructed Siebel Newsom to answer Werksman’s questions and several times struck her answers as non-responsive, including when Werskman asked about Weinstein noticing she was crying and Siebel Newsom replied that if she’s crying with her husband “he’s not going to keep being intimate with me. He’s going to stop.”
Werksman first addressed Siebel Newsom in his opening statement, telling jurors that if Siebel Newsom wasn’t the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), whom she married in 2007, she’d be “she’d be just another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood.”
The defense lawyer started his cross-examination Monday in a somewhat softer tone, asking Siebel Newsom about soliciting campaign donations for her husband from Weinstein before questioning her about details she shared in testimony that she didn’t disclose in earlier interviews.
Siebel Newsom pushed back in her answers as Werksman questioned her about not telling the grand jury Weinstein’s had penetrated her with his fingers before performing oral sex on her. That’s when she told the lawyer he was putting words in her mouth.
“I don’t recall being very prepared for very much of this with everything going on in my life,” she said.
She said she “was just telling my truth, and I didn’t know what the outcome was going to be.”
“When you told your truth, you didn’t mention that you had touched Mr. Weinstein’s penis and tried to get him to ejaculate did you?” Werksman asked.
“I honestly don’t remember,” Siebel Newsom answered.
Werksman showed her a transcript of an interview she did with police and prosecutors in which she said Weinstein asked her to give him a hand job.
“As we’ve gotten closer to this and it’s gotten more real, my need to clarify and be more detailed” has grown, she said. “I had everything in a box, and I’ve been slowly sharing a little bit at a time, because this is so painful.” She said she “was slowly allowing things out, and it’s been haunting me as we’ve been coming toward today.”
Werksman waxed philosophical.
“Truth is immutable. Wouldn’t you agree that there is only one truth? Something happened or it didn’t happen?” Werksman asked.
Siebel Newsom agreed but also said it’s “vague.”
“Sometimes things are in my head, and I can’t remember whether I’ve said them or not,” she said.
“Yesterday you mentioned having nightmares. Have you had a difficult time actually discerning what happened in a nightmare and what actually happened in a bedroom at the Peninsula?” Werksman asked.
“No, no,” she answered.
Werksman quoted from her testimony to the grand jury in 2020, in which she said, “He didn’t drag me. I didn’t scream. I didn’t know I could scream. It’s like I lost my voice.”
As Werksman pressed her, she said what she told the grand jury “was what I was comfortable sharing then of my truth.”
“Over time your memory has retrieved more and more as you’ve become comfortable talking about it?” Werksman asked.
“I’m not comfortable talking about it,” Siebel Newsom answered.
She agreed with Werksman when he said she told the grand jury she faked an orgasm with Weinstein.
“It was to expedite his experience so I could get out of there,” Siebel Newsom said.
“You were trying to stimulate him to ejaculating by pretending you were climaxing,” Werksman said. Siebel Newsom called his statement a “manipulation” of what she said.
“The purpose of you having an orgasm was to get him to finish having sex with you,” Werksman said.
“He wasn’t having sex with me,” Siebel Newsom replied. “I was making some noises to get him to finish. He had already raped me,” she said, adding, “This is so gross. I’m sorry, just that word,” referring to orgasm.
She later told Werksman, “It was not long. This is not When Harry Met Sally,” after Werksman again asked her about the fake orgasm.
“You indicated your pleasure,” Werksman said.
“I did not indicate my pleasure,” Siebel Newsom replied.
“Except for the part that you were faking an orgasm,” Werksman said.
“That word is not right,” Siebel Newsom said.
Werksman asked Siebel Newsom if she understands “the paradox of trying to stop a rapist by faking an orgasm?” but Judge Lench sustained Deputy District Attorney Marlene Martinez‘s argumentative objection, so Werksman reworded the question and Lench allowed Siebel Newsom to answer.
“It was at the very end after I’d already been assaulted. And I left right after,” she said.
Asked how long the encounter lasted, Siebel Newsom estimated two to four hours, including Weinstein “trying to console me” on the couch to him playing a “cat-and-mouse” game with her as she resisted his advances.
Werksman also asked her about her testimony that she’d told people Weinstein is “sketchy.”
“Telling people that a guy is sketchy is not the same as reporting sexual assault. Do you understand that?” Werksman asked.
“Yes, I understand that,” Siebel Newsom answered.
Werksman said she was “still debating whether this happened in 2004 or 2005” when she testified before the grand jury, which Siebel Newsom attributed to herself “putting it in a box” as “a way of putting away my sadness, my fear, my trauma, so I could move forward with my life.”
“But as you pulled memories out of the box, you changed them,” Werksman said.
“Sir, he assaulted me,” Siebel Newsom answered.
Werksman pressed her about when she realized Weinstein was attracted to her, and about Weinstein visiting her home when she had friends over.
“You were proud of the fact that among your peers that you could get one of the most Oscar-winningest producers in the world to come visit,” he said.
Siebel Newsom said she was more surprised. Werksman pressed her to “just answer the question” about whether she wanted to take advantage of Weintsein’s stature to advance her career. That’s when she said, “Your energy is just so intense.”
“You’re just adding things,” Siebel Newsom told Werksman.
“Well, why don’t you correct me? Did you believe you could benefit professionally from having an association with Harvey Weinstein?” Werksman asked.
“Yeah, sure,” Siebel Newsom answered.
Werksman told her, “Don’t answer the way you think I want you to. This is a truth-finding situation.” He moved on to Weinstein inviting Newsom to meet him at the The Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel, asking about her status in Hollywood at the time.
“You had been welcomed into Hollywood’s A-list, socially. You told the grand jury you had dated George Clooney, correct?” asked Werksman, but Judge Lench sustained a relevance objection from Martinez so Siebel Newsom didn’t answer.
“I think you told the jury yesterday that you don’t say no to Mr. Weinstein, right?” Werskman asked. When Siebel Newsom said yes, Werksman asked, “And you didn’t say no to Mr. Weinstein, did you?”
“I did,” Siebel Newsom answered.
As testimony continued through the morning, Werksman asked Siebel Newsom if she was too tired to testify, which caused her to tear up and say, “Sir?”
She affirmed she can answer his questions but told Werksman, “What you’re doing today is exactly what he did to me.”
“What does the word acquiesce mean to you?” Werksman asked.
“He took control and I didn’t fight it any longer until I found another way,” Siebel Newsom answered.
“You made a statement to police that as a kid you’re the kind of person who can’t say no. Do you believe that about yourself? That you’re someone who can’t say no?” Werksman asked.
“I have learned to be more strong and clear,” Siebel Newsom answered.
“That’s one of the reasons you didn’t leave the room, right?” Werksman asked.
“No, I felt trapped,” Siebel Newsom answered.
Werksman pressed Siebel Newsom about staying in touch with Weinstein after she alleged he assaulted her, including emailing his assistant nine months afterward while in New York to see if Weinstein was available to say hello.
“You could never tell from the tone or tenor of this email that this man had done despicable things to you,” Werksman said, asking if she intended “to project an airy and upbeat tone?”
“To pretend in my head that nothing had happened,” Siebel Newsom answered.
Werksman said she “blocked out of your memory your truth and that includes the fact that you had sent dozens of emails to Mr. Weinstein.”
Siebel Newsom said the “trauma of being sexual assaulted is still with me,” tearing up. Werksman also asked her about meeting Weinstein for breakfast in February 2007, and a luncheon where she saw him and later told police and prosecutors she was scared. He brought up an email she wrote Weinstein thanking him inviting her and Newsom and another friend to a party, saying they “had such a fun time” and “it’s always great to catch up with you.”
“By this time it’s March of 2007, you’ve emailed him 18 times and seen him at least 2 or 3 times,” Werksman said. But Siebel Newsom said, “I just don’t recall any of this” as he displayed more emails.
Then came questions about Siebel Newsom seeking Weinstein’s advice after Newsom admitted having a sexual relationship with a married city employee while mayor of San Francisco in 2007. Judge Lench prohibited him in a pre-trial ruling from disclosing the details, so Werksman summarized it as a City Hall situation involving her husband. Siebel Newsom said she recognized Weinstein as having “a lot of experience in the media.”
“Did you reach out to Mr. Weinstein about this situation that was so troubling to you?” Werksman asked. “I honestly don’t remember,” Siebel Newsom answered.
Werksman went over more emails that Siebel Newsom attributed to “just business” and “just the industry.”
“There is only one person in your life that you have accused of violently raping you, correct?” Werksman asked.
Siebel Newsom said yes and added, “He was still the most powerful person in the industry.” Werksman said she “left the impression” in her direct testimony that she’d only had a few communications with Weinstein after he raped her.
“The business was just one business brain, the other brain was different,” she said. “I felt safer because he was in a relationship and I was in a safe relationship.”
“It didn’t mean I didn’t have fear and trepidation,” she continued. “I know that doesn’t make sense, but if you haven’t been traumatized it doesn’t make sense.”
In re-direct exam, Martinez ended by asking if she intended to have sexual intercourse with Weinstein when she visited him at the Peninsula.
“No!” Siebel Newsom wailed.
Martinez asked if she said “no” to him.
“I did! I did with my voice and with my body!” Siebel Newsom wailed in a high-pitched voice. “I tried to be kind! I did by slamming my legs together! So many ways! … I tried to get out of there! I tried! I tried so hard!”
She repeatedly shouted “No!” again when Martinez asked if she’d consented to Weinstein licking her vagina. She cut Martinez off, shouting “No! No,” when she asked if she was consenting “when he stuck his penis inside your vagina” and Martinez ended re-direct.
Werksman had no further questions, and Siebel Newsom left the courtroom sobbing and escorted by a big group of people.
Trial resumes Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. Pacific time. Actor Mel Gibson is expected to take the stand this week, as a supporting witness for Jane Doe 3, a masseuse who testified that she confided in Gibson about Weinstein assaulting her.
[Images: Werksman photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images, Newsom photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images, Weinstein photo by Scott Heins/Getty Images]
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