Jessica Mann
Jessica Mann is one of the brave women who have stepped forward to charge Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein with rape. She testified against him in during his 2020 criminal trial and conviction in New York. Our volunteers have been working with Jessica since the conviction was overturned by an appeals court.
Below is her statement on her decision to not move forward with a fourth trial against Harvey Weinstein.
Your Honor,
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to be heard by the Court. After a lot of thought and reflection, I have chosen not to proceed at a fourth trial against Harvey Weinstein for raping me in March of 2013 in Manhattan. It was clear to me at this last trial I could no longer endure going through this any longer. In my fight to see justice, it has nearly stolen a decade of my life and put me through more harm than good. It has changed me in irrevocable ways that I live with permanently - that there is no restitution for. A cost I have been willing to pay over and over.
When I first came forward, I chose the court of law for accountability. As a victim of a crime, I put myself through the highest standards of accountability, in order to seek justice. Standards not even the man who raped me had to meet. As a victim of sexual assault, what happened to me in court and the media - continues to remind victims why it is seemingly not worth protecting society from sexual predators, and why pursuing justice is better left a pipe dream. Why coming forward is gambling under rigged odds in favor of the house. It is my belief that a predator is also gambler at heart - they gamble their victims will not report, they gamble they can overpower physically, mentally, emotionally. They gamble even if caught, convictions against sexual assault are low. They gamble knowing they can assault the character of a witness while their own character, actions and patterns of behavior can be hidden from a jury. Even having these trials, I felt it thrills Harvey Weinstein to beat the system he believed he is superior to. As your Honor knows, there’s a lot about Harvey Weinstein that this jury didn’t hear. He’s a sexual predator who assaulted and controlled women for decades. Had the jury heard about his systematic pattern of emotional and sexual abuse, I am confident they would have convicted him of raping me. In the process of court I have been fragmented, silenced, defamed and traumatized. I’ve paid the price of my reputation - something most would never sacrifice.
It appears Harvey was awarded all the protections, privacy and power he can wield through his wealth, which have continued to allow him to evade accountability. Justice now has moved away from the courts, solely into the hands of God. Something I relinquish with honor to Him - knowing I did my best, I gave my all and did what was right.
This has not come without great personal sacrifice - and as history often shows - those who fight fair, often do not win the war. I stayed aligned to integrity, and transparency - I brought everything into the light. It is the only way to expose evil.
Harvey’s prime arena is being a producer. Instead of taking the stand, Harvey chose the path he could control the narrative with - by creating media propaganda including podcasts and interviews that along with his media team orchestrated to be released during the trials. He knows that to take the stand he would have to account for the magnitude of choices he made and women he harmed.
I do not like to highlight my sufferings as the physical, emotional and psychological pain I live in does not validate the crimes committed against me. Nor do I want one testimony to be considered ‘standard’ for all other victims to weigh their personal responses against. I highly encourage you to read my Victim Impact Statement after his conviction from the 2020 trial where I discuss the power of his abuse. The impact of the sexual assaults by Harvey Weinstein have irrevocably altered my life. There are moments where I am deeply crippled by PTSD.
Living with sexual abuse trauma is one aspect of surviving a crime - and it is wholly another infliction to go to court and face the man who raped you- I warn earnestly, nothing could have prepared me for the deeper re-traumatization and additional trauma taking the stand induces.
What you may not know is that right before taking the stand I sustained a concussion and had to delay flying. While on the stand I was in pain - enduring headaches, pressure and inflammation that made testifying even harder. At times I was insecure that I may not be communicating clearly and noticed the change in my cognitive abilities. At one point, I disassociated on the witness stand under the tactics of the defense that relied at times on mischaracterizing context and altering facts. I cannot express how humiliating this was to have happened publically. I could not control my body’s decision to create a full stop, but I believe this was a protective measure to prevent me from having a seizure. One of the symptoms I live with of my Complex-PTSD, that began at the first trial, and led to me working with a brain clinic, are the onset of seizures during traumatic PTSD episodes. The unfortunate aspect of this is that I am certain the Jury did not understand what they were seeing and why it was happening. Instead the defense leaned into the trauma they induced and leveraged it to paint me as unstable.
The court gave so many privileges to Harvey Weinstein that it makes accountability nearly impossible. I have not had power or position in any of this. I have not had great wealth, nor have I had my own long term legal representation. I only had the courts and the ways it allows sexual predators to shield a jury from a magnitude of their actions and past crimes and charges - made Justice impossible for me.
Lastly, as a part of an attempt to demean me, Harvey’s defense team has referred to me as “The Darling of the Me Too Movement.” I have never considered myself a part of that movement.
When the 2017 news broke about Harvey Weinstein, I stayed anonymous until the day I took the stand in 2020. I declined an interview and photoshoot with Vanity Fair, among many other elite media requests for exclusive interviews. Instead, I stayed silent for a year. Only when I felt it would do society good to highlight the consent bill I was working on did I give News Nation an interview. If I wanted "fame" as a victim, I certainly left a magnitude of opportunity on the table. I did not join the Silence Breakers campaign and media promotion. I did not attend the 'She Said' Premier. I declined to be represented by Times Up, who offered to provide me free counsel. I did not take Time's Up PR firm for representation. Although I had the option to sue Harvey civilly, I waived these rights multiple times. I disclosed voluntarily that I had participated in the Anonymous Harvey Weinstein Sexual Misconduct Claims Fund, established for all the victims he had sexually assaulted. Had I joined that complaint, I could have received additional payout from the insurance companies. Yet, the jury did not have an opportunity to learn I never had financial motives in this. I consider that unjust given they speculated about my character on this matter. It seems the integrity of my transparency would be "unfair" to the man who raped me - Harvey Weinstein.
In all of this ordeal, I was treated as though I was the person on trial. By coming forward about being raped, I have been treated by some as if I was defiling the sacred sexuality of a man. Yet I was the one who had my sexuality defiled.
It is clear, when a convicted rapist is awarded privileges to continue to shield a jury from past settlements, nondisclosure agreements, prior convictions, or other abuse, there is no true justice for a victim of sexual assault when that rapist is a predator. Mr. Weinstein will continue to say he was just a target of women who wanted to use him. It is odd, a man who claims he is the victim - after several prior settlements with women who accused him of sexual assault - he continued to leverage his company and assistants to get women alone with him, in his hotel room. I’d like to think that one “false accusation” would have been enough for him to never put himself at risk again. It is reported that his settlements were in the past were so rampant, the board of his company made a policy that if he continued to have accusations of assault, he would simply have to pay out the settlement of his own funds. That is not the behavior of a man who is falsely accused. That is the behavior of a predator getting a high off his crimes. And yet, a Jury cannot know about his patterns and past.
I consider Harvey Weinstein - "Jack the Rapist". I can only hope that he serves time for the crimes he has been convicted on, individually, to honor the wake of women’s bodies he left in ruin - that were harmed on different days, different years, different times, different places, different eras, different ways.
If only the ill-intentioned walked around in dark anti-hero capes with their mission to take over the world embroidered. How wonderful it would be to distinguish collectively the forces of evil. How wonderful it would be to recognize a predator like the antagonist in a Hollywood film.
And so, respectfully and with honor I end this season of my life and no longer want to participate in criminal proceedings against Harvey Weinstein, the man who raped me.
###
