Harvey Weinstein’s Lawyer Challenges Accuser Alleging TIFF Assault

Kelly Sipherd, a former actor who briefly met Harvey Weinstein during the Toronto International Film Festival when she was 24 years old in the early 90’s, testified that she was sexually assaulted by the producer in 1991 and again in 2008.

She told the jury that after Weinstein invited her up to his hotel room to see a movie script for a potential role, he forcibly performed oral sex on her and raped her, despite her repeatedly telling him to stop. Years later, during a chance run-in again at TIFF, when she intended to confront Weinstein for assaulting her nearly two decades later, he cornered her in a hotel bathroom and masturbated in front of her.

Over the years, Sipherd told a handful of friends about the alleged assault, but did not report the assaults to authorities until much later. She testified on Monday in Los Angeles that she told her friends what had happened in the time between 2012 and 2016. But when Weinstein’s defense team questioned Sipherd, they asked why she waited to go to the police until after the #MeToo movement emerged, which began with Weinstein’s bombshell stories in 2017.

“The first time you told authorities,” said Weinstein’s attorney, Alan Jackson, was after “the whole world had basically dog-piled onto my client and accused him of being everything under the sun, including a sexual rapist.”

During cross-examination, Jackson painted a picture of a woman who “voluntarily” had sex with Weinstein, despite her testifying that she was assaulted against her will. Sipherd had previously told the jury that she met Weinstein at a party at TIFF in 1991 and had a “wonderful” conversation with him about art and film, so when he asked her to get a drink, she accepted, thinking it was a friendly and professional conversation. When he suggested that he might have a role for her, the then-aspiring actress agreed to go to his hotel because she believed the sole purpose of going to his hotel room was to see the script.

“You were a 24-year-old aspiring actress with a successful producer and agreed to go to a hotel?” Jackson asked. “To see a script,” Sipherd responded. Jackson then followed up with, “But my synopsis is accurate?”

Jackson asked Sipherd if she found Weinstein to be “fetching” when she initially met him. She had said she found him to be “charming” and “intelligent” during their first conversation, but believed it to be “nice” and cordial.

“He could provide some pretty significant job opportunities,” Jackson said, asking Sipherd if it would have been beneficial “being in his good graces.”

When Deputy District Attorney Marlene Martinez questioned Sipherd, she combatted Jackson’s line of questioning with a series of prompts.

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“Whether or not you found him ‘fetching,’ did you tell him ‘no’ once or multiple times?” the prosecutor asked. She rattled off. “Did you find him romantically attractive?” “Did you want to have sexual relations with him?” “Did you want to be in that hotel room with Mr. Weinstein raping you?”

A common theme of Jackson’s questioning was why Sipherd would see or speak to Weinstein again, if he had assaulted her. She had told the jury that after the 1991 incident, Weinstein called to invite her to an audition in New York, and she went, thinking it was a good career opportunity, but brought a friend so she’d feel protected and would not be alone with Weinstein. “You actually took his phone calls, didn’t you?” Jackson asked. “Your rapist was persuasive in trying to get you to come to New York?”

When Sipherd explained that she agreed to go to the audition and that Weinstein paid for her hotel in New York, Jackson said Weinstein asked her if Weinstein was a “pretty generous guy.” She responded, “Isn’t that what one does in business when they want to audition someone?” Jackson suggested that she “happily” agreed to go, but she rebutted, “Not happily.”

Years later, when Sipherd ran into Weinstein in 2008, once again at TIFF, she confronted him in his hotel because she had “pent up” feelings over what had happened in 1991 and wanted answers. During this interaction, she says Weinstein assaulted her again, masturbating in front of her as she couldn’t escape the room.

“For the second time, you find yourself with a man who is ostensibly raping you in a hotel room?” Jackson asked. Quietly muttering on the stand, Sipherd responded, “I know.”

During opening statements, the prosecution told jurors that Weinstein used business meetings to attack women. The defense, on the other hand, said the women knew Weinstein was powerful and wanted to sleep with him to get ahead in their careers — but years later, in the post #MeToo era, they have changed their stories from consensual and “transactional sex” to victimhood.

“They will play the part of the damsel in distress with this beast… They have to lie to themselves, to you, to this court,” Weinstein’s other attorney, Mark Werksman, told the jury at the start of the trial. On Monday, Jackson echoed this defense strategy.

“If you had consensual sex with Mr. Weinstein, the #MeToo monster, you would never be able to live with yourself and your husband and children, right?” Jackson animatedly asked Sipherd on the stand. The prosecutor objected and the judge quickly shot down Jackson’s line of questioning.