UPDATE, 5:06 p.m.: “He knew something was wrong when we were at the SAG Awards and the way Harvey was looking at me,” Jennifer Siebel Newsom told defense attorney Mark Werkman, jurors and viewers Monday during her testimony on Harvey Weinstein’s Los Angels.  rape trial, discussing her husband and then California Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom’s knowledge until 2017 of the producer’s alleged assault on her several years earlier.

“I dropped hints along the way,” added California’s First Associate in testimony that was often emotional, tearful and graphic.

Questioned by Werkman about when and how she told Newsom about Weinstein’s alleged rape in his Peninsula Hotel suite more than 17 years ago, Siebel Newsom sobbed at several points during her stand.  Focusing on frequent big-money contributor Weinstein’s political connections over the decades to various high-profile Democrats, the defense attorney remained unfazed by the witness’ distress.  “So that’s just politics, taking money from someone who has done something despicable to your wife, unless everyone finds out?”  Werkman said on cross-examination this afternoon.

Identified as Jane Doe #4 in Weinstein’s West Coast trial, Sybell Newsom revealed her real name last month ahead of her deposition in Judge Lisa Lentz’s downtown courtroom.  Locked on the stand today as the defense took its turn, Siebel Newsom is expected to return for more testimony on Tuesday, in what could be the closing days of this trial.

With Weinstein facing nearly a dozen sex-crime charges and facing up to 140 years behind bars if convicted, sources on both sides have said Sybell Newsom’s testimony could prove pivotal in the case.

Earlier in the day, after initially returning from her lunch break, the witness described in vivid detail that she went to meet Weinstein at the Beverly Hills hotel when she was a young and single filmmaker/actress captivated by the then-tycoon’s attentions.  “I was confused,” Siebel Newsom explained when a Weinstein assistant called out of the blue and said their meeting would take place in the producer’s suite.  “I was a little hesitant.  I waited to meet him where the noise and buzz was and all this talk took place.  I was just confused and didn’t know what to do.”

Siebel Newsom said things quickly took a turn for the worse and deadly.  She was invited to join Weinstein in the bathroom, where she found him masturbating.  Overcome and admitting she found some memories of the incident “confusing,” the witness told Deputy DA Marlene Martinez and the court how Weinstein explained what was happening to her.  “He was claiming and trying to tell me that, he mentioned a lot of names of actors, he tried to tell me that this was the industry and he kind of threatened me.”

Weinstein allegedly carried her into the suite’s master bedroom and began assaulting her again, inserting his fingers inside her, the witness said. 

“He knows this is not normal, he knows this is not consensual,” Siebel Newsom argued in a loud voice with Weinstein sitting a few feet away at the defense table with his lawyers.

“I could tell he just needed, he was so determined, so scary, everything about him and his pleasure, his need for satisfaction, so I did it to make him stop,” she added of Weinstein, who tried to put it on.  “strange and confused” penis inside her and have sex with her without consent and then forcefully groin her.  “Oh, I just made some noises to make him ejaculate faster,” Siebel Newsom said of Weinstein’s masturbation at the time.

“There was silence on my end,” Siebel Newsom told the court after Weinstein’s ejaculation.  “I remember being speechless.  I just wanted to get the f**k out of there, excuse my language,” she said, crying again.

“I remember being shocked by everything,” Siebel Newsom said of Weinstein’s subsequent small talk and her exit from his suite.  “It was like the Twilight Zone, once I walked down that hallway it felt like forever,” he noted.  “It was like an out-of-body experience.  I just remember taking my car to the valet.”

Siebel Newsom admitted on the stand that she didn’t go to the police after the incident, a decision she said was made in part because of a bad experience she had with law enforcement after her brother’s death years ago.  He also admitted to personal and political contact with Weinstein in the years after the alleged assault — a fact the defense is sure to continue to highlight in cross-examination Tuesday.

PREVIOUSLY, 12:27 p.m.: “He was really focused on telling me I was special and I was different,” Jennifer Siebel Newsom told a downtown Los Angeles grand jury Monday about her first encounter with Harvey Weinstein.

“He was like the kingmaker, he was the pinnacle of the industry,” she said at the booth of meeting Weinstein in 2005 at the Toronto Film Festival.  “I was a working actress, I had small roles, guest-star roles in TV shows and movies, and I worked in a couple of short films, I had been in two features … but they were small roles.”

Expected to continue her testimony this afternoon, Siebel Newsom broke down in tears at one point this morning when asked to point to Weinstein in the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center courtroom.  With two security guards in the front row of Judge Lisa Lench’s courtroom, Siebel Newsom took the stand for questions from LA County Deputy DA Marlene Martinez after several other witnesses testified Monday.

Amanda Edwards/Getty Images Having first revealed in late 2017 the interaction she had with Weinstein years earlier, Siebel Newsom went public through her attorney on October 10th that she was Jane Doe #4 in the incarcerated producer’s trial in Los Angeles. “Like many other women, my client was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein in a supposed business meeting that turned out to be a trap,” attorney Elizabeth Fegan said in a statement. “She plans to testify at his trial to seek some measure of justice for the survivors and as part of her life’s work to improve the lives of women.”

Siebel Newsom’s testimony comes after her husband, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, widely seen as a possible candidate for the US presidency at some point, was easily re-elected last week.

Weinstein faces charges of four counts of rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, one count of sexual penetration by force, plus one count of sexual assault by restraint and sexual assault in incidents involving five women in Los Angeles County from 2004. to in 2013. Sentenced to 23 years in prison by a Manhattan jury in March 2020 for multiple sex crimes, and now on appeal, Weinstein, 70, faces up to 140 years in prison if convicted in Los Angeles

In his opening statement at the trial last month, Weinstein’s lawyer Mark Werkman dismissed Siebel Newsom, the California First Associate, as just “another bum who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood” if she hadn’t married.  now-Govt.  Newsom.  As the testimony of another Jane Does and a witness began last month in the West Coast trial, information emerged in the press about Weinstein’s contributions to Newsom’s various campaigns over the years, as well as meetings with onetime director and actress Siebel Newsom — who married Newsom in 2008 when he was mayor of San Francisco — and her husband had with Weinstein after the alleged assault in late 2004-early 2005 in Los Angeles 

In late October, Lench limited the defense’s ability to question Siebel Newsom about her 2007 communication with Weinstein about an affair Newsom’s then-boyfriend had with the wife of a campaign aide.  The judge also limited the prosecution’s ability to ask about texts Siebel Newsom had with Louisette Geiss in 2015 about Weinstein and comments about former First Daughter Malia Obama’s internship at the Weinstein Co.  in early 2017.

Weinstein’s trial is expected to last until the end of the month before the case goes to trial.