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One of the many women who have accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault recounted to a jury on Monday how she was locked in a hotel suite bathroom — where the disgraced movie mogul masturbated on her.
Lauren Young told jurors at Weinstein’s Los Angeles rape trial that she was an aspiring actress at the time who had hoped to meet the former film producer about a script she wrote in 2013, when actress Claudia Salinas locked her and Weinstein in the bathroom of the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills.
Young described Weinstein’s penis as ‘disgusting’ and said it looked like it ‘had been chopped off and sewn back on.’
She had previously recounted the experience at the disgraced mogul’s New York trial back in February 2020 after prosecutors asked her to help establish a pattern of Weinstein’s sex pest behavior.
In an animated cross-examination later on Monday, Weinstein’s attorney Alan Jackson picked apart Young’s testimony, as he dramatically acted out bits of it, pounded his fist on the podium, and prompting a rare reaction from his client, who laughed at his commentary.
Jackson poked holes in Young’s story about being locked in the bathroom, saying she ‘felt that you were locked in there,’ but wasn’t actually, and then added that she ‘felt’ she was ‘being sexually assaulted,’ but she ‘was not.’
Young was not one of the accusers whose stories would lead to Weinstein’s conviction of rape and sexual assault, and his eventual 23-year prison sentence.
Now, though, Weinstein, 70, is facing another 11 counts of sexual battery by restraint for the same crimes. If convicted, he could face life in a California prison.
Lauren Young told jurors at Weinstein’s trial how she was aspiring actress who had hoped to meet the former film producer about a script she wrote in 2013, when actress Claudia Salinas locked her and Weinstein in the bathroom of the Montage Hotel and he masturbated on her
But she was not one of the accusers whose stories would lead to Weinstein’s conviction of rape and sexual assault, and his eventual 23-year prison sentence. She is pictured here in 2020
In court on Monday, Young told jurors how she was working as a model in early 2013, but wanted to be an actress and a screenwriter.
She was able to set up a meeting with Weinstein through his personal assistant, Claudia Salinas whom she considered a friend, for the night of February 19, 2013 about a script she was working on.
Young said Weinstein was distracted and uninterested in anything she had to say, and suggested she might be a reality television host on a show like America’s Next Top Model, which his company helped produce.
At one point, Young said, Weinstein said he had to get ready to go present an award to Quentin Tarantino at the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival and suggested she accompany him to his room to continue the discussion.
So, Young said, she followed him into his suite at the Montage and into his bathroom.
She said she thought there would be another door on the other side, and he was leading her somewhere else — and was shocked to see actress Claudia Salinas close the door behind them.
Weinstein, 70, is facing 11 counts of sexual battery by restraint and could get life in prison
During cross-examination of Young, Weinstein’s attorney Alan Jackson gave the trial rare moments of visual drama with a pair of clothing demonstrations including her dress
That’s when, Young said: ‘Harvey Weinstein started the shower and immediately took off his clothes.’
‘I was disgusted,’ she continued. ‘I had never seen a big guy like that naked.
‘I actually laughed nervously and thought ‘no, no, no,” she added as she began to cry.
Meanwhile, Young said, Weinstein simply continued their conversation.
‘He was just staring at me talking,’ Young recalled.
‘I had never seen someone that big naked, so I just couldn’t fathom what was even happening to me right now,’ she said.
‘He was just talking about the business and other actresses. And saying this is what they do, this is how I know you can act.’
‘I kept saying ‘no no no,’ she recounted. ‘He just ignored what I said.’
‘Everything happened so fast.’
At that point, Young said, Weinstein got into the shower while Young tried to make her escape.
But, she said, Weinstein got out of the shower and blocked her from the door before she could get away.
‘He said, ‘We’re just gonna talk,’ I said ‘no, no no no.’
Still, Weinstein continued to harass her, and soon started ‘touching’ her.
Young said she backed up toward the sink and turned away from the movie mogul, but he unzipped the back of her dress and pulled it down to around her hips.
‘He was grabbing my breasts and jerking off, like squinting at me, not looking at me,’ she said. ‘Holding me there and talking to me.’
‘He was just masturbating and groping me.’
She said she kept saying ‘no’ throughout, but he continued for several minutes, and also tried to touch her vagina — though she blocked him with her hands from penetrating her.
Young previously recounted the experience at disgraced mogul’s New York trial in February 2020 after prosecutors asked her to help establish a pattern of Weinstein’s sex pest behavior
Young said Weinstein’s assistant at the time, Claudia Salinas, invited her to meet with the movie mogul to discuss her script. She is pictured walking into court on Monday
The incident allegedly occurred at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills, now the Maybourne
‘I was really grossed out by his body and the look he was giving me,’ Young said. ‘I was wondering: ‘How do I get out of here safe, what am I going to do? What are they gonna do to me?’
‘I was very numb feeling,’ she continued. ‘I felt like I was outside of my body watching what was happening, I couldn’t move I was frozen. I was so scared.’
‘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.’
After groping her for several minutes, Young said, ‘he went back to groping my right breast even harder’ before ejaculating on the towel he was using and leaving the bathroom.
‘I was in so much shock, I was wondering how I was going to leave, and if they were going to let me leave,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.’
‘I pulled up my dress and I exited the bathroom.’
‘I saw Claudia Salinas right there. I shot her an evil look. She didn’t say anything. She looked at me. She had this evil look. Like a smirk. Like she roped me in on something.’
She said she also saw Weinstein changing clothes before she walked out of the suite to a car.
‘I sat in my car and cried and was in complete shock. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I should call the cops.
‘I wondered ‘What do I do? This guy is so powerful.’ I didn’t know what to do. I called my friends, got a hold of them, messaged them.’
Ultimately, Young said, she decided not to tell police about what she had experienced.
‘I was scared at that point that he might have an in with the cops or was corrupt like that,’ she said. ‘I knew he had a lot of power I was really scared.’
Young was then asked to describe Weinstein’s body.
‘He had rolls and he was really hairy and there was moles on his body,’ she replied. ‘His penis was disgusting. It looked like it had been chopped off and sewn back on, like something wasn’t right about it.’
And when asked about Weinstein’s testicles, Young said: ‘I didn’t really see a full sack, I literally just saw a penis.’
Young said she never saw Weinstein again, but the very next day she saw Barbara Schneeweiss from Weinstein Co. with Claudia Salinas sitting in the waiting room.
‘I told her ‘Don’t f******talk to me,” Young said she told Salinas.
‘She didn’t say anything. She stayed there and just was right by me until I went into the office room. She talked to Barbara for a little bit. She talked about job offers that they wanted to give me, I told her I wasn’t really interested in doing reality TV.’
Young then went on to say that she was afraid of what would happen if she did not go to the meeting, but she never followed up on it.
It wasn’t until others started speaking out at the beginning of the #MeToo movement in 2017, Young said, that she decided to call a police hotline.
‘At that point, other people were coming out and I felt safe to do so,’ she said. ‘I wanted to prevent it from happening to anyone else.’
In her testimony, Young says Salinas, a Mexican model, locked her in bathroom with Weinstein
In court on Monday, Young also positively identified photos of herself with Salinas and identified the dress and slip she wore to the meeting, which she previously gave to New York authorities.
Young also drew a picture of Weinstein’s anatomy for LAPD, showing him naked, masturbating and holding up the hand that he was allegedly grabbing her breast with.
Of the unusual testicles, Young said: ‘I wasn’t trying to look at it, but it was something I hadn’t seen before.’
Video played at the trial of suite 520 at the Montage, now the Maybourne, seemed to corroborate her story as a shower door appears to partially block the doorway out, and it seems like it would have been easy for Weinstein to step out and block the door.
During cross-examination, though, Weinstein’s attorney, Alan Jackson pushed her on why the text message from Claudia Salinas inviting her to meet with Weinstein has since apparently been deleted.
‘You would agree, that text from CS is pretty important,’ he said. ”It’s the catalyst that put you in touch with Mr. Weinstein on the 19th.
‘Where’s that text?’ he asks. ‘Did you seek to delete that text? Did you seek to destroy any communication with Miss Salinas?’
‘No,’ Young said in response, saying she dug through computers, WhatsApp and other places to try to find it.
Still, Jackson persisted, pointing to an October 2018 interview in which she told police: ‘It’s weird that I lost everything on my phone, when my phone erased except my numbers.
‘I was very distraught in the beginning and trying to remember everything,’ Young replied before Jackson questioned her about the date of the meeting — saying she had previously said it had happened much later.
Later Monday, Jackson gave the court rare moments of visual drama with a pair of clothing demonstrations during cross-examination.
He pulled out the dress Young had been wearing that night and got her to acknowledge that a DNA test failed to prove Weinstein had touched it.
Jackson pulled out the dress Young had been wearing that night and got her to acknowledge that a DNA test failed to prove Weinstein had touched it
Jackson also tried to cast doubt on whether Weinstein could have slipped out of his suit as quickly as she described. He pulled off his own suit coat to demonstrate.
‘I’m just going to take my jacket off, I’m not going to go any further,’ Jackson said.
‘Please don´t,’ Young answered.
When asked how Weinstein could have unfastened everything so quickly, Young answered that he may have gotten started while he was walking down the hall, a method she used to use for quick changes as a model.
‘Does Mr. Weinstein strike you as a model?’ Jackson asked.
‘No, but he’s definitely a monster,’ Young replied.
Young initially told detectives that the assault had taken place a year earlier, days after she had been at a dinner with Weinstein at a Beverly Hills restaurant. Jackson pointed out that she was saying the same as recently as 2020.
‘I was sure that I was sexually assaulted,’ Young said.
‘That wasn’t my question,’ the lawyer replied. ‘I’m asking about the time. Something that would stick in your mind.’
Jackson also brought up her previous confusion about the site of the assault, and she acknowledged that she could not name the hotel in her first three interviews with authorities, the most recent in 2020.
‘I had pushed it out of my memory,’ Young said.
She decided it was the Montage when police suggested it and took her to the suite where Weinstein had been staying.
‘And since then your testimony and your statements have gotten far more detailed and far more colorful, right?’ Jackson said.
‘My trauma, I got to relive it by walking through that room,’ Young said. ‘I had been in other rooms and didn’t feel anything. When I walked in that room, I felt everything flow back in.’
According to allegations in an indictment and court testimony, the assault of Young came the day after Weinstein raped an Italian model at a different hotel during the run-up to that year’s Academy Awards, where Weinstein was annually a major player.
Weinstein, 70, has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of rape and sexual assault involving five women. He has said that many of those incidents were consensual, though in the case of Young his defense denies there was any sexual interaction.
Young’s testimony echoes that which she gave at a New York trial in February 2020
Young tried to keep a low profile by keeping her head down and covering her hair with a scarf when she arrived to court in New York
Her testimony on Monday echoes what she told a New York jury back in 2020.
But at the time, Weinstein’s defense lawyer Damon Cheronis tried to cast doubt on Young’s testimony by pointing out that she initially told the Los Angeles District Attorney that she ‘blacked out’ for a portion of the alleged assault.
Young said: ‘I stated it was a blacking out of my memory. I blocked out some memories because it was such a traumatic experience.’
‘So when you told (prosecutors in May 2019) you used all your strength to try and open the door, that was just wrong?’ she was asked.
‘Yes,’ she replied, adding she ‘recollected all my memories and retraced all my steps.’
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