California Governor’s Wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom Accuses Harvey Weinstein of Rape | CBC News

WARNING: This article contains graphic content and may apply to those who have experienced or know someone who has been affected by sexual violence.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, almost tearfully cried out from the witness stand on Monday as she told the court that Harvey Weinstein raped her in a hotel room and spoke of the devastating effect it had on people she had the 17 years since then.

“He knows that’s not normal!” she exclaimed during the Los Angeles trial, recalling her thoughts amid the alleged 2005 rape. “He knows that’s not consent!”

Then she exclaimed “Oh God!” as if overcome by the memory, and gave in to weeping. Weinstein watched from the defense table.

Siebel Newsom said she unexpectedly found herself alone with Weinstein in a suite at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, where she had agreed to accompany him to a meeting. She said she assumed others would be in attendance and they would talk about their careers.

When he came out of the bathroom in a robe with nothing underneath and started groping her while he masturbated, she described her feelings.

“Horror! Horror!” She said. “I’m shivering. I’m like a stone, I’m cold as ice. This is my worst nightmare. I’m just this inflatable doll!”

She then gave a vivid description of a sexual assault and rape by Weinstein in the suite’s bedroom.

Weinstein’s attorneys, who were only allowed to cross-examine her briefly and will continue Tuesday, say the two had consensual sex and that she tried to use the powerful producer to further her career.

Met in Toronto

Weinstein is already serving a 23-year sentence for rape in New York and has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of rape and sexual assault in California involving five women.

Siebel Newsom is the fourth woman accused of sexual assault by Weinstein to take a stand in Los Angeles. Her testimony was the most dramatic and emotional of the three-week process to date. She cried throughout her two and a half hours on the witness stand, beginning with a request to identify 70-year-old Weinstein for the record.

“He’s wearing a suit and a blue tie and he’s staring at me,” she said as tears began to flow.

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Siebel Newsom, now 48, described how Weinstein first approached her to pitch at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2005. At the time, she was a producer and actress with only a few small roles, and he was at the height of his Hollywood power.

She said that when they had drinks later in the day, he was “charming” and showed “genuine interest in talking about my work.”

A few weeks later he was in the Los Angeles area, stopped by her house during a small party to drop off a gift, and invited her to the meeting at the hotel.

“I felt so hurt”

She described how nervous she was after being shown to his hotel suite. When asked by Assistant District Attorney Marlene Martinez why she didn’t go, she said, “Because you don’t say no to Harvey Weinstein.”

Afterward, she said she felt “so much shame.”

“I got so hurt and I don’t know how it happened,” she said through sobs. “I didn’t see the clues and didn’t know how to escape.”

Siebel Newsom is known at trial as Jane Doe #4, and like the others, Weinstein faces charges of rape or sexual assault, her name will not be mentioned in court. But both the prosecution and the defense identified her as the governor’s wife at trial, and Siebel Newsom’s attorney confirmed to The Associated Press and other news outlets that she is Jane Doe #4.

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The AP typically doesn’t name people who say they’ve been sexually abused unless they’ve come forward publicly.

Weinstein has had many famous accusers, including A-list actors, since becoming a magnet for the #MeToo movement in 2017. But none of the women who shared their stories at the trial had anywhere near the notoriety of Siebel Newsom – wife of Mann who last week sailed into a second term as governor of the nation’s most populous state and possible candidate for the White House. The governor was not in the courtroom on Monday.

Newsom returned donations

During cross-examination, Weinstein’s attorney Mark Werksman repeatedly pressed Siebel Newsom when she told her husband about the attack, noting in a transcript of a 2020 interview with prosecutors that she said Newsom was “maybe” the first person who told her.

She said she “gave pointers along the way” in the years after she met him, when Newsom was mayor of San Francisco. He received the full report when women stories about Weinstein circulated in 2017, she said, and would then return Weinstein’s former political donations.

Werksman suggested that the couple sought Weinstein’s donations at a time when Newsom must have known their story.

He took money “from someone you implied did something despicable to you?” asked Werkman.

“It’s complex,” Siebel Newsom replied.

“Well, is that just politics,” Werksman asked, “that you’re just taking money from someone who did something despicable to your wife if everyone doesn’t know about it?”

Siebel Newsom denied Werksman’s suggestion that new elements of the alleged assault, which she had not described in interviews with prosecutors or testimony before the grand jury, first emerged in her testimony Monday.

He said he wanted to know why her story had changed.

“We all heard that you were very emotional,” he said. “You’ve had a lot of time to think about it over the past 17 years.”

Siebel Newsom said she spent a lot of time not thinking about it.

“It’s very traumatic, sir,” she said.