Harvey Weinstein defense challenges Jennifer Siebel Newsom on rape allegation: ‘She made me do it’
By Susan K. Livio
The Associated Press
Published: February 29, 2016
Updated: February 29, 2016 at 12:34 AM
When it comes to sexual harassment and rape allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, the New York senator who represents their home state would have preferred a man like him in office, even if that meant she didn’t win re-election.
“I don’t think I can be friends with him,” Ms. Newsom, a Democrat, told The New York Times in 2000 after the news first broke that he had sexually assaulted a woman at the home of his brother. “I don’t like the company he can bring to our state.”
She has been defending herself against Mr. Weinstein since the allegations by a former “Sex and the City” actress emerged last week.
She has called him a “serial and prolific sexual harasser.” She has said he had ruined women’s lives, she was in his office when he told her he was going to rape a former “Sex and the City” co-star, and then he raped her. She has said she will not appear on television with Mr. Weinstein. And she has said she doesn’t want people to think she believes everything she has said and done.
Yet she has remained steadfast in her defense of him. On Friday, she said in a statement that “she was stunned” that Mr. Weinstein, her Senate colleague and neighbor for 16 years, would not face charges.
As she made her statement, she said, she heard the call-waiting noise from her phone.
She said she was told by the police chief of North Bergen, N.J., and the director of
