Jurors Shown Harvey Weinstein Naked Photos Amid Trial Of Disgraced Mogul
The photos show Weinstein's genitals.
Getty Last week, Jessica Mann took the stand in the sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein. The 34-year-old former actress told a complicated story of being assaulted by Weinstein, while also maintaining a civil relationship with the once-powerful producer.
Mann alleges that Weinstein sexually assaulted her two different times, first at the beginning of their relationship and again at the end when she told him she was seeing someone else. In between those two traumatic incidents, she continued to have a sexual relationship with him in a misguided hope that it would transform into something positive.
She alleges, however, that he became more controlling and abusive as time went on.
Her level of physical intimacy with Weinstein meant that she was able to deliver a detailed description of his body to the jury, including identifying characteristics of his genitals, which she says are deformed. Yesterday, the jury got a chance to see Weinstein's body for themselves: the prosecutors shared fully nude photos of the alleged rapist during the trial.
What do we know about Harvey Weinstein's naked photos? Read on for the shocking details, but be forewarned: the material in this article is graphic and those who are sensitive to discussions of sexual assault should proceed with caution.
1. Who is Jessica Mann?
Jessica Mann is one of two women pressing charges against Weinstein for sexual assault in New York City, along with former Project Runway production assistant Mimi Haleyi. The 34-year-old grew up in Washington State in a rural community. Her family was very religious and conservative so her move to LA at 25 was a source of tension between her and her parents.
She had left home hoping to pursue an acting career and when she met Weinstein at a party in 2013, she wanted to believe it was a sign that she was making the right choice with her life, despite what her family had said.
She welcomed his attention at first, thinking he would be able to help her acting career. However, his intentions were more sinister than she knew.
2. Weinstein tried to manipulate her into sex almost from the start.
On one encounter early in their relationship, Weinstein claimed the didn't want to hang out in a hotel bar where people kept coming up to talk to him. He asked Mann to join him in his suite upstairs, which she did. Once they were there, he tried to coerce her into letting him give her a massage.
Mann said no to letting him touch her, but he pressured her into giving him a back-rub instead. She had a detailed memory of the experience, telling jurors, “At that point, he had his shirt off and he had lotion. I started putting the lotion on his back... just like very awkwardly... with flat palm, stiff fingers, and smeared it around,” she said. “He had a lot of a lot of blackheads, and the texture of that was uncomfortable.”
3. He sexually assaulted her twice.
Not long after the back run incident, Mann and a friend met Weinstein to talk about their show business careers. After suggesting that he had lead roles for them in an upcoming film, he invited them up to his hotel suite. While they were up there, Weinstein pulled Mann into the bedroom, saying to her friend, "We’ll just be a minute.”
Inside the room, he attempted to rape Mann but she was able to avoid sex with him. Instead, he said, "Let me do something for you. I’m not letting you leave until I do something for you.” He convinced her to lie on the bed and he performed oral sex on her, even though she did not want that to happen.
Mann also described how, several years after the first incident, Weinstein raped her and forced her to perform oral sex on him. She remembers him ejaculating into her mouth without her consent.
She had been trying to end their relationship because she had met someone new and he demanded "one last time" from her. After the assault, he suggested that now she could bring other women to him for a sexual relationship.
4. Mann's descriptions of Weinstein's body were memorable.
In the years between the two assaults, Mann continued to see Weinstein and have sexual relations with him. She testified that, due to her conservative religious upbringing, she was sexually inexperienced and, in her naivete, thought her relationship with Weinstein could develop into something more normal. Instead, he just engaged in more and more degrading behavior.
One time, he urinated on her in the shower. “We were in the shower. He wanted to shower first which was beneficial to me," she said, recalling that he felt his hygiene was usually lacking and he often smelled like feces. "And he asked me to come into the shower and then he said to me, ‘Have you ever had a golden shower?’ and I said ‘no’ and then I felt him peeing on me."
That relationship gave her an intimate familiarity with his body, particularly his genital organs and she talked in detail about them in her testimony. “The first time I saw him fully naked. I thought he was deformed and intersex. He has extreme scarring that I didn’t know, maybe [he] was a burn victim. He does not have testicles, and it appears that he has a vagina,” she testified.
Jessica Mann has been testifying for several days.
5. The jury got to see Harvey Weinstein's naked photos.
The testimony about Weinstein's body was certainly shocking. It was also unique. The corroborating witnesses who testified earlier in the trial did not share similar details. Anyone who has watched a legal drama knows that testimony as specific and identifying as Mann's needs to have some corroboration or else the defense can say that the witness is unreliable.
The prosecutors clearly knew this as well and were prepared to show the jury what Mann had seen. Yesterday, the prosecution handed the jury five photographs of Weinstein naked, over the objections of Weinstein's lawyers. The contents of the photos are largely unknown. The photographer who took them confirmed that he had snapped the mogul completely naked in 2018 as part of his arrest process. Then the jury was given the photos but they were not shown to the rest of the courtroom.
A sketch artist who could see the jury box rendered a partial drawing of the photos. The sketch seems to confirm what Mann said about the skin on Weinsteins's back being blemished but they don't contain enough detail to verify her description of his genitals.
The jurors reportedly raised eyebrows and winced as they looked at the pictures.
When Weinstein left court for the day, reporters asked him if those were really naked pictures of them. He sarcastically shot back, "No it was Playboy.""
The courtroom sketches appear to confirm Mann's description of Weinstein's blemished skin.
6. Will the world ever see naked photos of Harvey Weinstein?
We are not lawyers here so we cannot say what happens to evidence after a trial ends. It's possible that the photos could come out one way or another, such as if a journalist finds a way to request them or someone inside the court sells them to a tabloid.
Once the jurors are dismissed, they should be allowed to talk to reporters so they may be able to talk more about what the pictures contain after the render a verdict.
For now, the photos are private and only the trial jurors know exacly what they show.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.