Los Angeles jurors in Harvey Weinstein’s sex-crimes trial were shown photos on Friday of the topped titan’s genitalia and the surrounding area, which prosecutors said endured severe scarring and alterations after a 1999 surgery for a bout of gangrene.
The 12 person jury—consisting of three women and nine men—were shown 30 photos of and reports on Weinstein in a private room in the Los Angeles Superior courthouse. In addition to the photos, the jury was also given a description of Weinstein’s surgery and subsequent scarring after he suffered a life-threatening infection known as Fournier’s gangrene.
Weinstein’s surgery has been a repeat subject in his latest sex-crimes trial, where prosecutors allege that he sexually assaulted five Los Angeles women between 2003-2014 after using his power to lure them for his own sexual gratification and ensure their silence. He has pleaded not guilty.
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On Wednesday, the disgraced movie mogul’s defense attorney grilled one accuser for allegedly lying about Weinstein’s testicles—forcing her to go into detail about what she observed about his genitalia when she says she was assaulted in 2013.
The woman, identified in court as Jane Doe 1, told jurors that Weinstein had “problems with testicles” and noted that it was “part of him.” Defense attorney Alan Jackson said Wednesday that by the time of the alleged incident, Weinstein’s testicles had been surgically relocated to his inner thighs in the surgery.
“That surgery caused pretty noticeable scarring, and you’ll see the pictures,” Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson said on Monday. “Because of an infection, his testicles were actually taken from his scrotum and put into his inner thighs.”
The revealing photographs on Friday—first reported by Law&Crime—came after a dancer in Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights told jurors on the stand that Weinstein made her feel “like a piece of meat” when he groped and masturbated on her inside a Puerto Rico hotel room in 2003.
The woman, identified in court as Ashley M., spent the second day on the stand Friday detailing the alleged assault, which she said occurred while Weinstein’s assistant was on the other side of a hotel room door. She told Los Angeles Superior Court jurors that after luring her to the hotel under the guise of discussing future career projects, Weinstein aggressively began to take off her clothes, before eventually straddling her, groping her, and ejaculating on her breasts and face.
At the time of the assault, Ashley M. said that she was just 22 years old.
“I felt really violated and part of me was… you know, still emotional, and part of me was really upset,” she told jurors on Friday, adding that she left Puerto Rico the next day.
The now 41-year-old is the second woman to testify against Weinstein. While Ashley is not among the five women at the crux of the criminal case against Weinstein, which include rape charges, she is among the women set to testify to corroborate the prosecution’s case about the former producer’s pattern of predatory behavior. Weinstein is also already serving a 23-year prison sentence after being convicted of similar crimes in New York—though that case is on appeal.
Weinstein’s legal team previously told jurors that the women taking the stand were making up their harrowing allegations—and claimed that they had “transactional sex” with their client for their own professional gain.
On Thursday, Ashley M. recounted to jurors that she was excited to learn in 2002 that she landed the role as the “body double” for the Dirty Dancing sequel. She said she was in Puerto Rico for a week for the Miramax film. She said she met Weinstein one day on set and he soon suggested they go on a walk outside together.
Sitting on a bench, Ashley M. said Weinstein soon began to ask questions about a “naked massage”—a topic she said she was immediately uncomfortable with and tried to shut down by repeatedly saying she was engaged to a man identified in court as Charlie M.
“He said he did it with Gwyneth Paltrow. ‘Look what I did to her career,’” she told jurors she recalled Weinstein saying.
During cross-examination on Friday, defense attorney Mark Werkesman asked the woman whether Weinstein was “deterred at all by the fact” that she was engaged. Ashley M. replied no, saying that after someone approached her during the conversation to bring her back to set, Weinstein said “he would be there waiting.”
The alleged assault, she said, happened days later. Once she got into the hotel room, she said she immediately freaked out when “[the assistant] Bonnie shut the door behind us.” Under cross-examination, she said she did not immediately leave the hotel room because she “was worried” and she knew “he was big.”
“Did you verbalize or express the panic you were feeling out loud?” Werksman asked at one point on Friday, to which the dancer replied that she tried to stop the assault.
“I just was trying to leave, I was just trying to, like I said, I was just hoping that nothing worse was going to happen,” she added.
Afterwards, she said, she told her mother and her then-fiance about the assault. Her now-former husband also took the stand on Friday to discuss the alleged incident—saying that Ashley M. sounded “in shock” when she described what had happened.
“He had masturbated during the meeting,” Charlie M. told jurors, referring to what his former wife told him after the incident before she came home “right away.”
