The three women who helped secure Weinstein’s New York rape conviction
In 2020, three female witnesses testified that they had been sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein while he was on trial for raping another woman.
Their testimonies were permitted under a New York State law, known as the Molineux Rule, which allows testimony from “prior bad acts” to be considered in an active case to demonstrate repeating patterns of behaviour.
At the time of the trial, it was said that the Manhattan district attorney’s case against Weinstein rested almost entirely on the women’s testimony, according to The New York Times.
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However, New York’s court of appeal has now ruled that the trial judge made a mistake by letting prosecutors introduce testimony from the three women who were not part of the charges he faced.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has vowed to retry Harvey Weinstein.
These are the three women who took to the stand.
Lauren Young
Actress
In 2013, Harvey Weinstein met aspiring actress Lauren Young to discuss a script she had written at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills.
Ms Young told jurors at Weinstein’s trial that she was paralysed with fear when Weinstein blocked her from leaving the bathroom and began to masturbate in front of her while groping her breasts.
“I was scared of Harvey Weinstein — that he would hurt me, or send someone to hurt me, or ruin my career, or make my life hell,” she told the court at the time.
Ms Young went on to vividly describe Weinstein’s penis saying it looked like it “had been chopped off and sewn back on”.
Dawn Dunning
Actress and producer
Dawn Dunning, a former waitress and aspiring actress, first met Weinstein in 2004 at a nightclub in New York City where she worked.
He offered to help her with her film career and called a meeting in a hotel room where he allegedly slid his hand up her leg.
Ms Dunning told jurors that “his hand went under my underwear. He was trying to put it in my vagina,” as she broke down in tears during the 2020 trial.
Asked by the Assistant District Attorney, “did his finger actually go into your vagina?” Ms Dunning cried and responded, “Slightly. Not all the way.”
Weinstein allegedly told Ms Dunning that the incident wasn’t a “big deal” and that it would not happen again.
After testifying about the hotel encounter, Ms Dunning detailed a second encounter with the film producer at another meeting with him at a different hotel.
Ms Dunning said she assumed the earlier incident was a one-off, until she arrived at Weinstein’s hotel and he answered the door wearing an open dressing gown.
Inside the hotel room, Weinstein allegedly had three movie contracts on the coffee table.
She claimed he then pointed to the contracts and said: “You can have all three of these parts if you have a threesome with me and my assistant”.
Ms Dunning said that after she assumed he was joking, he became angry and exclaimed: “You’ll never make it in this business. This is how this industry works. This is how actresses got to where they are.”
Tarale Wulff
Model
Model Tarale Wulff told jurors during the initial trial that Weinstein masturbated in front of her at work and then later raped her in his Soho apartment.
Ms Wulff met Weinstein at a bar in 2005 where she was waitressing. She claims that after telling the former producer that she was an actor, he told her “you have a great look, you should come talk to my people”.
At the bar, Weinstein allegedly took Ms Wulff upstairs. She told the court: “I noticed that his shirt started moving. He had on a white shirt. And I realised he was masturbating under his shirt, and I just froze for a second, then I just threw the towel and ran past him,” she told the court.
One week later, Ms Wulff went to meet the producer about a script. Weinstein sent a car for her that took her to an apartment building in downtown Manhattan where Weinstein allegedly forced her to have sex with him.
“He had taken me by the arms, and turned me around, and put me on the bed, laid me down, and laid on me as he lay me back,” she told the court.
“When he was in front of me, that’s when I felt afraid. That’s when my red flags finally went up.”
Ms Wulff said that she told Weinstein she “can’t”. He replied: “Don’t worry I had a vasectomy.”
