Jennifer Siebel Newsom, California governor Gavin Newsom’s wife, is one of five women who accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault and who will testify at the disgraced mogul’s sexual assault trial in Los Angeles that begins this week.
The former film producer faces charges of rape and other sex-related counts involving five female accusers, including Siebel Newsom, who say Weinstein attacked them in hotel rooms between 2004 to 2013. All five are expected to testify, as well as other women not part of the criminal charges.
“Like many other women, my client was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein at a purported business meeting that turned out to be a trap,” Siebel Newsom’s attorney, Benjamin Fegan, said in a statement to the media via ABC 7. “She intends to testify at his trial in order to seek some measure of justice for survivors, and as part of her life’s work to improve the lives of women. Please respect her choice to not discuss this matter outside of the courtroom.”
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Jury selection in the trial begins on Monday. The trial is expected to last approximately eight weeks and Weinstein could face up to 140 years in prison if convicted.
Fegan did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Weinstein is already serving 23 years in a New York prison for criminal first-degree sexual assault and third-degree rape, a conviction he has been granted the right to appeal, arguing that juror James Burke was biased against him. Weinstein has maintained his innocence since the beginning and has spent more than a year in a Los Angeles jail awaiting trial here.
Weinstein’s lawyers in August failed to delay the Los Angeles trial in the wake of publicity for the feature film “She Said” about two New York Times reporters who blew the Weinstein and #MeToo scandal open in 2018.
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