Harvey Weinstein is innocent

Everybody is treating Harvey Weinstein as a rapist, but the legal case against him is remarkably weak. The chief accuser, Jessica Mann, has told a very bizarre set of stories, according to this Daily Beast account of her trial testimony.

In short, she was a 27-year-old actress wannabe who voluntarily entered into a consensual sexual relationship with Weinstein in order to get better movie roles. That is, most of it was consensual, but she later decided that a couple of the acts went beyond what she wanted. She never screamed or fought back or complained or reported it or anything like that. Not until years later when news reports of other complaints opened up the possibility of draining his fortune in payoffs.

There is also another accuser with a similarly weak case.

The prosecutors seem to realize that the facts about these accusers will not convict Weinstein of anything. So they are bringing an assortment of other women with stories going back to 1993 about other incidents that are not being charged.

This is like charging a man with robbing two banks, and then spending most of the trial time on accusations that he robbed other banks and got away with it. Except that such a prosecution would never be allowed in a bank robbery case, as irrelevant and prejudicial.

Weinstein may well be evil. If making offensive movies were a crime, he should be in jail for that.

From that point on, she said Weinstein would call her whenever “he needed a fix,” and those sexual encounters weren’t forced. The relationship, which was brief, also included a threesome and one encounter during which he urinated on her, Mann testified.

“The first time I saw him fully naked, I thought he was deformed and intersex,” she said, as Weinstein put his head into his hand. “He has extreme scarring that I didn’t know if he was a burn victim but it didn’t make sense. He does not have testicles and it appears that he has a vagina.”

Mann said she tried to end the relationship after multiple uncomfortable encounters—including one situation where Weinstein “said ‘Do you like my big, fat, Jewish dick?’” — but admitted she stayed in contact with him out of fear for her family and the future of her career. ...

“Once I was naked and laid on the bed, he went into the bathroom and sort of closed the door behind him. The door was still kind of open a little bit,” Mann said, as she started to cry. “And then he came out naked, and then he got on top of me and that’s when he put himself inside me.” ...

Despite her horror, Mann said she went down for breakfast with her friends and “shut down” as she agreed to join Weinstein for the premiere of August Osage County out of fear and confusion.

This is just so weird, I don't know what to say. Obviously she was free to walk away at any time. Mann is obviously a mentally ill opportunist. Maybe she shouldn't be allowed to make such choices, but we live in a free society where adults can do such things. I don't think he could have been raping her if he has no testicles.