Harvey Weinstein Accuser Says Her Friendly Emails ‘Doesn’t Change the Fact That He Raped Me’

Former aspiring actress and hairdresser Jessica Mann acknowledged that her relationship with Harvey Weinstein was “complicated and difficult,” but told jurors on Tuesday that her prolonged communication with the Hollywood mogul didn’t negate her accusation that he raped her several times.

Entering the second day of cross-examination, Weinstein attorney Donna Rotunno exhaustively questioned Mann, email by email, on why she would continue to reach out to Weinstein and meet up with him even after, by her account, he raped her. “I do know the emails. I’m not ashamed of them — that’s why I’m still here,” Mann said. “I know it’s complicated and difficult, but it doesn’t change the fact that he raped me.”

Rotunno responded, “You are again making excuses for your behavior.”

Mann, who first testified on Friday and said that Weinstein violently raped her in hotels in New York and Los Angeles around 2013, replied, “It’s not about making an excuse. This is something I want to explain that’s important for people to understand. I don’t need an excuse. I own my behavior.”

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Earlier, the jury heard from another prosecution witness out of order: actress Emanuela Postacchini, whom Mann said on Friday had been present when Weinstein asked for a threesome in a hotel room.

“I was uncomfortable. My understanding of her was that she was uncomfortable,” Mann said last Friday. “She didn’t speak very good English, and she appeared nervous.” Mann said that Weinstein instructed them to undress and for Mann to orally pleasure Postacchini, but Mann soon “broke down” and ran to the bathroom, crying.

“I was completely overwhelmed,” Mann testified. “And then (Postacchini) came to the bathroom, asked if I was okay, and Harvey seemed kind of upset.”

But during Postacchini’s testimony on Tuesday, the Italian actress said she did not remember doing anything sexual with Mann or Weinstein. She did, however, say she was “surprised” to see Mann in the hotel room and remembered that Mann got upset and ran into the bathroom. “She was crying in a fetal position on the ground,” Postacchini said.

Mann’s account makes up several of the five charges against Weinstein. If found guilty of the most serious charge, predatory sexual assault, he faces life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty and denied accusations of nonconsensual sex.

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