Model Alleges Weinstein Trapped Her In Bathroom (Photo Credit: Twitter)
New Delhi :
One of the key accusers in Harvey Weinstein case has testified in court on Wednesday of the harrowing night in 2013. Lauren Young, a 30-year-old model and actress testified in a Manhattan courtroom against Weinstein alleging that the disgraced Hollywood mogul trapped her in the bathroom with him while he masturbated. Telling the court that she was just 22 years old when she first met Weinstein at a post-Oscars dinner in Los Angeles Young adds that she struck up a friendship with another woman who was at the dinner named Claudia Salinas. A year post their meeting, Salinas contacted her and said Weinstein wanted to meet with her at the Montage hotel in LA to discuss a script she was working on.
“I was excited. I put on my best dress. I was excited to network and pitch my ideas,” she said.
Young said she first met Salinas at the hotel bar, where Weinstein later joined them. Once inside the suite, Young said she was walking behind Weinstein while speaking to him with Salinas behind them. When Weinstein walked into the bathroom and Young had taken a few steps in behind him, she said Salinas shut the door behind her.
Weinstein, meanwhile, turned on the shower and began undressing.
“I was in shock and laughed nervously. I have never done that before, but I was really worried and scared that he was going to hurt me or something,” Young says of the situation.
“He kept saying, ‘We’re just talking, we’re just going to talk,’ while I was backing away towards the sink,” she said. When she reached the sink, Young said, she turned away because she did not want to look at Weinstein’s naked body.
"We're just going to have a talk here’’ until he started unzipping her dress, and groping her while he masturbated masturbating despite her repeatedly saying no.
"This is what all the actresses do to make it." Weinstein is said to have told her.
Earlier in the day prosecutors said that the dress Young wore the night of the alleged assault was found and has been turned over to the Los Angeles district attorney’s office. On her testimony, the dress may be tested for Weinstein's DNA in relation to the charges he faces there, prosecutors said.
On Weinstein’s attorney’s prior request, the dress was presented in court Wednesday where he held up the dress and repeatedly asked Young how Weinstein could have done as she had alleged.
After the ordeal, Young said that she left the suite as fast as she could cutting all contact with Weinstein, who tried to reach out to her a few times through his assistants at the Weinstein Company.
Years later, Young said, she visited a number of hotels in Beverly Hills, in hopes of remembering the hotel the alleged assault took place.
“I just knew that was where it happened,” she said on Wednesday. “I knew even in the first three steps, but once I was in there I just started crying because I realized everything that I had remembered was true’’ Young says of lobby at the lobby at the Montage which had been remodeled, rendering her unable to recognize it at first. She however added that she broke down on seeing the bathroom in the hotel’s suite where the alleged assault had taken place.
Weinstein's attorney will continue cross-examining Young on Thursday.
(With inputs from agencies)
