In some breaking news on the disgraced Harvey Weinstein front, it turns out that California governor Gavin Newsom’s wife was involved with the career-making mogul more intimately than previously thought. That will be the defendant’s case, at least, as another trial gets underway.
Newsom’s actress wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, is one of five new accusers who will take the stand during the trial to sort out the latest in the Weinstein/#MeToo saga.
Fox quoted Newsom’s lawyer, issued through a press release, that describes their side of the case:
Like many other women, my client was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein at a purported business meeting that turned out to be a trap,” Newsom’s attorney, Elizabeth Fegan, said in a statement. “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
For his part Weinstein scored a victory in the procedural element of the case, as a judge determined that they could admit as evidence an email written from Siebel Newsom to Weinstein in 2007. The email was sent two years after the alleged sexual assault was said to have taken place, opening up the possibility that their relationship was a bit more complicated. Fox wrote:
A judge said she would allow Weinstein’s defense the opportunity to question the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, about an email she sent to Weinstein two years after she was allegedly raped by the now 70-year-old.
Los Angeles Judge Lisa Lench ruled that the defense could ask about an email Siebel Newsom sent seeking media advice from Weinstein, but could not say it was about revelations of an affair that Gavin Newsom had with an aide when he was mayor of San Francisco.
Weinstein’s legal team remarked that this email was a huge part of their defense, saying, “Of all things you’d think a woman that is raped by Harvey Weinstein wouldn’t do, it’s ask him how to deal with a sex scandal.”
The Daily Mail added a further layer to the case. The email in question stemmed from Gavin Newsom’s own affair with the wife of an aide in 2007. This took place while he was mayor of San Francisco and having been dating Siebel for over a year. Siebel wrote to Harvey Weinstein about how to manage public messaging. It again stressed that the defense’s case will play on this angle to demonstrate their relationship was closer than Siebel suggests. After all, why would someone violently and sexually assaulted remain in close contact and be the go-to source for political help?
Jennifer Siebel Newsom says Weinstein raped her in 2005 after ‘luring’ her to a hotel room. At the time, she was an actress and had not yet started dating Newsom. In 2007, a year after she met Newsom and started dating him, he became embroiled in an embarrassing sex scandal.
He was Mayor of San Francisco and had had an affair with Ruby Rippey Tourk, the wife of one of his senior advisers.
Jennifer, then his girlfriend, contacted Harvey to ask for how she should handle it, according to a filing submitted by Harvey’s lawyers last night. They say it proves that the prior encounter between them was consensual.
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