Defense lawyers for Harvey Weinstein on Thursday called their first witness, who testified that rape accuser Annabella Sciorra told him she had “done this crazy thing with” Weinstein.
Former Miramax and Weinstein Company employee Paul Feldsher took the witness stand at the trial in Manhattan Supreme Court and said the “Sopranos” actress made the comment in the early 1990s.
“I remember Annabella saying to me that she’d done this crazy thing with Harvey,” Feldsher said. “We were on an extremely long walk that night from Lincoln Center and ended up going to a restaurant in Alphabet City.”
Feldsher — who called Weinstein a “friend” and someone he’s known for about three decades — told jurors that “there was no component about what [Sciorra] said that I found shocking or alarming and I don’t recall it being stressful.”
“My understanding was that she fooled around,” said Feldsher, who added that “for a several-year period” Sciorra was “one of my closest friends.”
Sciorra testified in the case last month as the first of six alleged victims, and tearfully described how Weinstein allegedly raped her inside her Gramercy Park apartment in Manhattan in the early 1990s.
“I was punching him, I was kicking him … and he took my hands and put them over my head like this,” Sciorra had told jurors as she crossed her wrists above her head. “And he got on top of me and he raped me.”
Sciorra, 59, claimed that Weinstein forced his way into her apartment and then forced himself on her before boasting, “I have perfect timing.”
She said the alleged attack happened in the winter of 1993-94 after she had dinner at an Irish restaurant with a group of people that included Weinstein.
Sciorra wept as she described how trauma from the alleged rape prompted “a lot of what I now know is called dissociative experiences,” along with heavy drinking and self-harm.
Feldsher, who said he has gone on vacation with Sciorra multiple times, including to Paris, claimed that he knew her to drink alcohol and take prescription medication.
When lead defense lawyer Donna Rotunno asked Feldsher if Sciorra ever mentioned a “negative experience” with Weinstein at her Gramercy Park apartment, Feldsher said, “no.”
When Rotunno previously cross-examined Sciorra and asked her about telling Feldsher that she had “awkward sex with Harvey Weinstein,” Sciorra denied it.
During his testimony, Feldsher mentioned that he was hired by Weinstein in late 2016 as consulting producer on a French film and was supposed to be paid $15,000 a week over a six-week period, but initially “wasn’t getting paid as promised.”
Feldsher said on cross-examination that there was a few months where he was “angry” with Weinstein when he was not being paid for his work.
Under cross-examination by Assistant DA Joan Illuzzi-Orbon, Feldsher said there was an up to seven-year period where he had not seen Weinstein, but got reconnected with the Hollywood powerbroker after the 2016 presidential election.
The election was “personally really difficult for me, and Harvey was always, in my experience … on the right side of politics, and I was happy to be back in his orbit,” Feldsher said.
When Illuzzi-Orbon pressed Feldsher about what Sciorra told him about Weinstein the night of their long walk, he said, “I don’t have any more details to offer about the event.”
“As I recall it, if it had been something … that had frightened her, given the nature of our relationship, I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t have evoked something more … I can’t imagine that I wouldn’t have had follow-up questions,” he said.
Feldsher added that he “felt badly” for Weinstein in 2017 after The New York Times and The New Yorker published bombshell stories exposing allegations of sexual misconduct against him.
Since then more than 90 women have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct.
Feldsher also admitted that he had spoken to Weinstein about his criminal case.
Last month, actress Rosie Perez took the witness stand in the trial and recalled for jurors the moment Sciorra whispered to her over the phone, “I think something bad happened to me.”
“She said, ‘I think I was raped,’ and the way she said it was so strange, because she was still whispering and she said, ‘I was raped,’ and her voice started shaking, and I said, ‘Do you think or did it happen?’” Perez testified.
“And … she started crying,” Perez said, adding Sciorra wouldn’t initially say who allegedly raped her, but that Sciorra later confirmed it was Weinstein.
Feldsher testified Thursday that he remembered Perez “being in [Sciorra’s] world.”
Weinstein, 67, is facing life in prison on predatory sexual assault and other charges related to incidents involving Sciorra, Miriam “Mimi” Haleyi, and Jessica Mann.
Three other Weinstein accusers have testified in the #MeToo-era trial as a way to bolster the prosecution’s case.