By Pat Savage
American jurisprudence guarantees a man the right to face his accusers. Still, they usually don’t come half a dozen at a time.
Six women are set in the process of testifying against disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who faces charges of sexually assaulting two of them.
The most spectacular testimony figures to come from Sopranos actress Annabella Sciorra, who has already said publicly that Weinstein forcibly raped her in 2003. another has accused Weinstein of forcibly performing oral sex on her in 2006. Another of the women who will testify is accusing Weinstein of sliding his hand into her vagina during a business meeting. Yet another claims he put his hands on her in the hotel room and masturbated in front of her.
All of the women will be testifying against Weinstein at his trial in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, one of the most sensational trials in recent memory period in all, nearly 100 women have accused Weinstein of a variety of sexual misconduct’s such as rape, unwanted touching comma and sexual harassment. Indeed, the first of the accusations was what sparked what has come to be known as the #metoo era.
In her opening remarks last week, prosecutor Meghan Hast said that Weinstein, 67, used “his power and prestige in the entertainment industry to ensure their silence.”
The criminal indictment charges Weinstein “with sexually assaulting two of the women, but the remaining four will testify about their encounters with him to show a pattern of abuse. Mr. Weinstein is accused of five felony counts, including rape and predatory sexual assault. He faces life in prison if the jury of seven men and five women convict him of the last charge,” reported the New York Times. “The prosecution’s case turns on whether jurors believe the women’s testimony. Prosecutors have no physical evidence to support their accounts.”
Former production assistant Mimi Haleyi has said that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in his New York City. “The 42-year-old Haleyi, whose legal name is Miriam Haley, is the first of the two women whose accusations are at the heart of the charges against Weinstein to take the stand at the closely watched #MeToo-era trial, which is in its fourth day of testimony,” ABC News noted.
“At some point, he came towards me and lunged at me, trying to kiss me,” she told the jurors. “I got up from the sofa and I said, ‘Oh no.’ I kind of rejected him and pushed him away and he just came back and kept kissing me and fondling me. I got up and tried to walk away from him but he pulled me towards him. He was kind of walking toward me and I was walking backwards trying to get away. I walked backwards. … I was backed into a bedroom that was on the corner of that open space area, through the door. I walked backwards because he was pushing me with his body until I got to the bed and I fell backwards onto the bed and I tried to get up and he pushed me down.”
