CNN
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Jennifer Siebel Newsom, an award-winning filmmaker and spouse of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, is about to testify within the sexual assault trial of disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein in Los Angeles, her attorneys informed CNN Monday.
“Like many different ladies, my consumer was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein at a purported enterprise assembly that turned out to be a entice,” mentioned Beth Fegan, one among Newsom’s attorneys.
“She intends to testify at his trial to hunt some measure of justice for survivors and as a part of her life’s work to enhance the lives of ladies,” Fegan mentioned.
Weinstein, 70, is about to go on trial once more, greater than two years after he was convicted of first-degree legal sexual act and third-degree rape fees in New York and sentenced to 23 years in jail.
After he was discovered responsible in New York, the once-powerful film mogul was moved to Los Angeles, the place he’s been serving his jail sentence.
In Los Angeles, Weinstein faces a number of sexual assault fees that he has pleaded not responsible to final 12 months, together with 4 counts of rape, 4 counts of forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by power and sexual battery by restraint in incidents courting from 2004 to 2013.
Jury choice for Weinstein’s trial started Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court docket. Newsom will seemingly testify “on or round November 8” however this might change because the schedule is fluid, legal professional Mark Firmani mentioned.
Because the trial in Los Angeles is about to get underway, Weinstein has maintained his innocence and denied all allegations towards him. New York’s highest court docket in August agreed to listen to his enchantment difficult his 2020 conviction on intercourse crime fees.
The allegations towards Weinstein helped gas the worldwide #MeToo motion, encouraging ladies across the globe to talk out towards sexual abuse.
Only a day after The New York Instances printed its bombshell report on Weinstein in October 2017, Newsom wrote an opinion editorial for the Huffington Put up the place she shared that she had an expertise similar to the allegations reported by the Instances.
“I used to be naive, new to the trade, and didn’t know the right way to take care of his aggressive advances ― work invites with a pal late-night at The Toronto Movie Competition, and later an invite to fulfill with him a few function in The Peninsula Resort, the place workers had been current after which impulsively disappeared like clockwork, leaving me alone with this extraordinarily {powerful} and intimidating Hollywood legend,” Newsom wrote.
Weinstein spokesman Juda Engelmayer declined to touch upon Newsom’s allegation.
Siebel Newsom is a Stanford College graduate who has written, directed and produced a number of documentaries, together with “Miss Illustration,” “The Masks You Reside In” and “The Nice American Lie.” Throughout her time as California’s First Associate, Siebel Newsom has advocated for working moms and launched initiatives targeted on closing the pay hole, amongst different efforts, and has been concerned in a number of social activism campaigns.