Harvey Weinstein Accuser Jessica Mann Testifies in Court, Says He Was “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”

Jessica Mann, the third accuser in the Harvey Weinstein retrial, took the stand Monday and described how Weinstein would turn into a “monster” during their relationship that was at one point consensual. 

“I referred to him as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Mann said, describing how at times she felt he would validate her beauty and acting career, but then would turn when it came to sexual situations. “The word ‘No’ specifically was like a trigger to him.” 

Mann, an aspiring actress, testified that she had first met Weinstein around 2013 at a party in Hollywood and had then gone with him to Book Soup, where he bought industry-related materials for her. She was later invited by Weinstein up to his hotel room, where he said he wanted to give Mann and her friend a script for Vampire Academy. After calling Mann into the bedroom, Weinstein performed unwanted oral sex on her. 

After that incident, which Mann described as being a “battle,” Mann said she decided to embark on a relationship with him. She cried on the stand and took long pauses when asked by ADA Matthew Colangelo why she chose to start a consensual relationship with Weinstein after that incident. 

“I just decided to have a relationship with him. I’m sorry if that’s a bad decision. I just did. I also just wanted to buy time because I really didn’t know how to handle it,” said Mann, while in tears. 

”I just thought it would take the pain away,” she said, adding that “maybe the mixed feelings i had [about the oral sex incident] was just because I wasn’t in a relationship and if I was in a relationship it would feel different.” Mann had testified earlier that she did not have sexual encounters outside of relationships. 

While Mann described the earlier alleged sexual encounter she had with Weinstein, the charged incident in the case relates to a rape charge. Mann claims that she was raped by Weinstein in a Manhattan hotel in March 2013. At the time, Mann was visiting New York City with friends and said she had arranged to meet Weinstein for breakfast, along with her friends, but found that he had arrived early at her hotel and was in the process of booking a hotel room. 

“I didn’t want to go into a room with him,” said Mann, who was crying on the stand while saying she was pleading with the workers not to give him a hotel room. Weinstein, sitting at the defense table in a wheelchair, shook his head “no” several times as she spoke. 

Weinstein booked the room and she followed him upstairs after he told her “Please don’t embarrass me in public.” In the room, she claims he repeatedly held the door shut as she tried to leave and said she didn’t want to do this, grabbed her arms and told her to undress. 

“This is about the moment where I just gave up,” she said. 

She said Weinstein then went to the bathroom and injected himself with a substance which she later found was to treat erectile dysfunction and then performed unwanted penetrative sex on her. 

The rape charge is the most serious charge Weinstein faces in the retrial. He also faces criminal sexual charges related to Miriam Haley, who alleges he forced oral sex on her at his TriBeCa apartment in 2006, and from Kaja Sokola, who alleges that Weinstein forced oral sex on her in a Manhattan hotel, where he had also persuaded her to come up to his room to see a script. Mann is the last of the women to testify in the trial. 

As with Mann, all three women testified to earlier alleged sexual encounters with Weinstein that are not charged in the case but have been allowed to be presented to the jury as evidence for consideration as background information about the relationship between the two parties, rather than a propensity or predisposition to commit crime.

Mann testified that she had kept in contact with Weinstein for months after the incident, but that she was then more careful about when she met him, after seeing that what she assumed was the erectile dysfunction medication had a limit on the number of times it could be used in a row. She sent several flattering emails to Weinstein in the following months, to which she said was in part because there was a good side to him, but also because “I perceived him to be a bit of a narcissist,” she said. “It’s just what kept the peace.”

Mann said she wanted to get out of the relationship with him, but was unsure how, given his volatile personality and connections to the industry. He also did eventually help her get an audition for Vampire Academy, though it was not the lead role he had suggested and she did not book the gig. She said Weinstein also tried to send her an envelope of cash at one point, when she was working several jobs and struggling financially. However, she refused it. 

“It just felt like you’re trying to pay me like a dirty prostitute. I never took money from him. I never wanted his dirty money. I wasn’t for sale.”