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 Weinstein, 67, has pleaded not guilty to charges of assaulting
two women, Mimi Haleyi and Jessica Mann. Sciorra's allegation is
too old to be charged as a separate crime, but prosecutors hope
it will show that Weinstein was a repeat sexual predator, a
charge that could put him in prison for life.
Weinstein's spokesman, Juda Engelmayer, said Sciorra was
expected to testify Thursday. Sciorra's lawyer, Gloria Allred,
and the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance
declined to comment.
During opening statements on Wednesday, New York prosecutors
accused Weinstein of committing violent attacks on aspiring
actresses, who they said suffered shame and humiliation as they
internalized trauma from the encounters.
Defense attorneys countered that emails from the accusers to
Weinstein would show they maintained warm relations, which could
undermine a case that appears to rely primarily on the testimony
of the accusers.
The trial is a watershed moment for the #MeToo movement, in
which women have gone public with allegations against powerful
men in business and politics.
Since 2017, more than 80 women, including many famous actresses,
have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct.
Weinstein, who reshaped the independent film industry with
critically acclaimed pictures such as "The English Patient" and
"Shakespeare in Love," has denied the allegations and said any
sexual encounters were consensual.
Assistant District Attorney Meghan Hast told jurors on Wednesday
that Weinstein raped Sciorra, best known for her role in HBO's
"The Sopranos," on a winter night in 1993 or 1994. After giving
her a ride home and dropping her off, Hast said, Weinstein
knocked on her door unannounced, forced his way inside and
assaulted her.
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Damon Cheronis, one of Weinstein's lawyers, said in his opening
statement that Weinstein could not have gotten to Sciorra's 17th
floor apartment uninvited because her building had a doorman, and
that Sciorra had in the past described the encounter as consensual.
Cheronis offered a similar defense for the other accusations against
his client. In each case, he said, women had reframed consensual
relationships as predatory after the fact.
Cheronis said emails and text messages would show that Haleyi, who
has said Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in 2006,
repeatedly reached out to him in the following years. Mann, whom
Weinstein is accused of raping in 2013, even told Weinstein she
loved him and that she wanted him to meet her mother after the
alleged attack, Cheronis said.
Hast said that the women kept in touch with Weinstein because they
"felt trapped." She told jurors they should not discount the
allegations simply because Weinstein did not fit the profile of a
rapist grabbing victims "in a back alley."
"Here the rapist was at the pinnacle of the very profession his
victims strived to make a career in," she said.
(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder
and Cynthia Osterman)
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