The woman at the center of Harvey Weinstein’s third New York rape trial continued her testimony Tuesday, sharing graphic details of the day she says she was raped that the jury will base their verdict on.
Jessica Mann, now 40, told the jury of seven men and five women that Weinstein, now 74, trapped her in a Manhattan hotel room in March 2013, grabbed her, then “strictly” commanded her to take her clothes off before forcing himself on top of her and his penis inside of her, advances she said no to.
“I said no over and over and I tried to leave … I was begging him,” Mann said, sobbing. “I tried to open the [hotel] door twice with all my strength and he was … slamming it. He trapped me in this room and he kept telling me to ‘undress now.’ When I didn’t, he grabbed both my arms.”
The March 18 encounter took place in Manhattan’s DoubleTree hotel during a trip Mann, a young, aspiring actress, took to New York City with friends. Weinstein was supposed to meet Mann and her friends for a group breakfast at the hotel, but he arrived early and pressured Mann to meet him in the hotel lobby and go upstairs to a hotel room he’d booked for them in front of her that morning.
Mann said she protested Weinstein’s booking the hotel room that March morning, saying she told the hotel attendant they “didn’t need a room” and was “pleading” with them with her eyes not to let Weinstein book a room after he strictly told her not to embarrass him, but the attendants still let him check in to the hotel.
Rothschild Capulong, the DoubleTree employee who checked Weinstein in that March 2013 morning, said Monday he had a “gut feeling” of concern for Mann’s safety. He said she “looked unhappy,” “discontent,” and like she didn’t want to be there, prompting him to email the hotel’s department heads and send security to the floor where Weinstein’s room was located.
Capulong said he remembered feeling “intimidated” by Weinstein, who was “looming” over the counter and “rushing” him through the check-in process.
Mann has said she first became connected with Weinstein after the two met at a party and he told her he was “interested in her look,” an interaction that led to the movie mogul telling her and her friend they’d be perfect to star in an upcoming film of his.
The implication that he could help her career – or hurt it if she crossed him – was part of what kept her engaging in an ongoing relationship with Weinstein that involved multiple instances of rape and sexual assault, Mann said.
She told the jury Monday that, after Weinstein sexually assaulted her the first time in Los Angeles before he raped her in New York, he told her, “My friends go far, and my enemies never step a foot in this town.” That sentence motivated her to not entirely cut off her relationship with Weinstein, she said, telling the jury the movie he implied he’d cast her in “would have been the biggest opportunity in my acting career at that time.”
“I didn’t want to get blacklisted and ruin my opportunity to try to make it,” Mann said. “I didn’t really know how to navigate it. I felt like I had gotten myself into a situation I didn’t really fully understand.”
This is the third jury to hear Mann’s account of that March 2013 morning. Her Tuesday testimony comes in a retrial of Weinstein’s 2025 rape trial, in which a jury could not return a verdict on whether Weinstein raped Mann. That trial was also a retrial, stemming from an initial 2020 trial, in which a jury convicted Weinstein of raping Mann.
Weinstein has been accused of raping over 80 women since 2017, when allegations against him helped spark the ‘MeToo’ movement.
Weinstein’s defense team has argued there was a period of time that March morning where Weinstein was in the hotel room’s bathroom and was not blocking the hotel room door, meaning that Mann could have left before the alleged rape occurred. The fact that she didn’t, they’ve said, shows she chose to have sex with him.
The district attorney’s office has argued that Mann was under Weinstein’s complete control and was being pressured and forced into sexual encounters with him she did not want to have, alleging the titan producer took advantage of her as a vulnerable young woman with a history of abuse.
Mann told the jury Tuesday that “no was a big trigger” for Weinstein, and upsetting or refusing him in any situation would spark anger.
Additionally, Weinstein’s attorneys, two of whom represented hotshot real estate broker Alexander brothers in their recent federal sex trafficking trial, have argued that the relationship was entirely mutually beneficial to Mann and that she wanted to engage in it, as it helped her to get close to a powerful man in her industry.
Weinstein’s attorneys, some of whom also currently represent alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione, are expected to continue pushing that line of argument through their cross-examination of Mann.
Their questioning is expected to begin later this week. Mann is expected to continue her testimony Wednesday.
If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault, help is available by calling the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.
