Harvey Weinstein Survivors Saddened by Overturned NY Conviction: ‘Disappointing for All of Us’
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Lauren Sivan had barely opened her eyes Thursday morning when she got the news Harvey Weinstein’s landmark #MeToo-era conviction in Manhattan had been overturned by New York’s top court. The former New York TV news reporter – one of more than 100 women who say Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them during his decades-long career as a top Hollywood gatekeeper – knew the divided decision was a possibility. The judges who issued the ruling had appeared unsettled during an appeals court hearing in February. Still, she needed time to process everything at her home in California.
“I just woke up to this craziness,” she tells Rolling Stone in a phone interview. “We all definitely feared this could be a possibility, right? A lot of us, we’ve all been talking this morning. We’re obviously disappointed, angry and feel like, ugh, not this again. (But) it’s obviously a legal loophole. This isn’t like he’s innocent or these things didn’t happen.”
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Weinstein, 72, will not be walking free even though he’s no longer bound by the 23-year prison sentence for his overturned New York conviction, where jurors found him guilty of the rape of aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013 and forced oral sex on production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006. He’ll remain in custody after a Los Angeles jury convicted him in 2022 of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault involving his attack on Italian actress Evgeniya Chernyshova in a southern California hotel room in 2013. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison for that conviction.
“We’re grateful that he’s going to remain in jail, at least until he’s almost 90, because of the L.A. trial. But my heart goes out to those who testified in New York who really had to repeat the trauma that he put them all through. Those are really brave women who came forward and took the stand. And the idea that they might have to do it all over again is really heartbreaking,” Sivan said. “It’s like picking a scab off a wound for these women who might have to go through this all over again.”
Sivan was among the first women to step forward in 2017 after the New York Times published its blockbuster piece exposing the initial wave of public allegations against Weinstein. Sivan alleged Weinstein had cornered her in a vestibule of the New York restaurant Socialista in 2007 and forced her to watch him masturbate until he ejaculated into a potted plant. A co-owner of the restaurant later told The Hollywood Reporter that Weinstein asked for his help debunking Sivan’s claim, but the restauranteur remembered the night in question – how he saw Weinstein adjusting his belt after allegedly paying a sous chef $100 to leave the area – and he sided with Sivan.
“I feel a little shocked and unsteady,” Louisette Geiss told Rolling Stone in a phone interview Thursday, referring to the overturned conviction. “This is exactly why I took the time to testify against Harvey Weinstein in the L.A. trial.”
Geiss, a screenwriter and actress, said that after Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction was similarly overturned, she agreed to testify at Weinstein’s Los Angeles criminal trial as a corroborating witness for Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California governor Gavin Newsom. Siebel Newsom says Weinstein raped her at a Los Angeles hotel in 2005. She was one of the victims whose allegations became criminal charges in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Geiss testified that Sibel Newsom had disclosed the alleged assault to her. Seibel Newsom gave her own harrowing testimony during the trial, but jurors deadlocked on her claim.
Geiss says it was difficult to take the stand and face Weinstein. She previously stepped forward in 2017 to say Weinstein tried to force her to watch him masturbate while she was pitching a movie at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008. She also led a class action lawsuit that battled Weinstein in federal court and eventually won settlements for more than 50 victims through a bankruptcy court proceeding for The Weinstein Company.
“This makes me feel even stronger about what we did here in L.A. because, look, I feel like women never know. You can get him convicted, and then they’re out. It’s like banana-land court, you know?” Geiss said. “It’s extremely upsetting, but we have to keep fighting.”
Chernyshova’s lawyer, David Ring, says the Italian actress was “devastated” by the ruling on Thursday. “She is in this with all of Harvey Weinstein’s victims, and she feels terrible for them,” Ring tells Rolling Stone. “It’s been seven years since they came forward. Then they went through a tough trial and one round of appeals and won. But then in the final round of appeals, suddenly at the very end, they lose. She’s devastated. But on the other hand, she’s going to do whatever it takes to ensure her criminal conviction is seen through to the end and that he serves prison time in California.”
In a statement to Rolling Stone, actress Caitlin Dulany, who alleged that Weinstein sexually assaulted her at the Hotel du Cap during the Cannes Film Festival in 1996. she is “deeply saddened and absolutely devastated” by the court ruling.
“There are so many of us who lived silently with our stories for years, for fear of retribution and with the belief that we could not seek and achieve justice. What Harvey Weinstein did to us affected our lives and careers in ways that we will never recover from,” Dulany said in her statement. “What happened today is a travesty of justice – but I’m not surprised. The justice system is in deep need of reform.
“This is a terrible setback for survivors everywhere who are brave enough to come forward with the stories of abuse,” she added. “I am forever grateful to the women who women who testified at Harvey Weinstein’s New York trial, at great personal cost. The fight goes on and we will win in the end. I want all survivors to know – we hear you and we won’t stop fighting for the justice you deserve.”
Sarah Ann Masse also lamented the Thursday ruling in a statement to Rolling Stone. The writer, filmmaker and She Said actor who founded the nonprofit Hire Survivors Hollywood previously stepped forward to say Weinstein harassed and assaulted her when she interviewed for a nanny position in 2008. She says Weinstein conducted the interview in his underwear, embraced her in a sexual manner, pressing his genitals against her, and then didn’t give her the job when she did not take him up on his sexual propositions.
“Regardless of today’s ruling, the truth of what Harvey Weinstein did was never in question. Long before the trials, long before the silence was broken in the press, long before this was international news, those of us who were abused by him knew that this man was a sexual predator,” Masse said in her statement. “Please know that nothing about today’s decision implies or states that Weinstein is innocent. And the world has been forever changed by the women who were brave enough to challenge him in court.”
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