The fifth accuser does not appear to testify and the judge of the trial against Harvey Weinstein in Los Angeles, Lisa Lench, reduces from eleven to seven the charges facing the former king of Hollywood in the city where he was once the good and bad weather. Two counts of forcible rape and two counts of forced oral sex were dropped in what represents a partial success for Weinstein who is already serving a 23-year sentence in upstate New York. In the meantime, the situation of Kevin Spacey, another cinema VIP at the center of accusations of sexual harassment, is getting worse across the Atlantic. The two-time Oscar winner, fired outright from the Netflix show House of Cards, will have to answer for seven new crimes including three episodes of sexual assault, the British prosecutor announced, all related to the complaint of a single individual. In July, Spacey appeared at the Old Bailey to plead not guilty to the previous charges, and the judge scheduled a trial for June 6, 2023.
Weinstein also faces sexual harassment allegations in London. Crown prosecutors gave the green light in June to charges by a woman, now 50, who claims she was attacked by him in the mid-1990s. In Los Angeles, meanwhile, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, now the wife of California governor Gavin Newsom, is back on the witness stand, who wants to send Weinstein to prison for a rape that allegedly took place in 2005. The cross-examination by the former producer’s lawyers was brutal, with Weinstein’s defender Mark Werksman going to great lengths to prove that the sex was consensual.
At one point the lawyer asked Siebel Newsom to simulate an orgasm in the courtroom: “This is not Harry when I meet Sally,” the witness replied horrified, alluding to the famous scene in a crowded New York restaurant in which the Actress Meg Ryan: “I was making noises to get him to finish. She had just raped me », she added through tears. With the departure of «Jane Doe n. 5,” Siebel Newsom was the fourth and last of Weinstein’s accusers to testify against him. The former producer, who initially faced 140 years in prison, now faces potentially 60 if found guilty on all seven counts.