I agree that some of the accusers probably were aware of the rumors but to be fair I can also see them conducting business with him in private settings, including hotels, without any intention of sleeping with him and believing they weren't in danger.
Those types of meetings (private, not in conventional office settings) seem to be common in entertainment even amongst people who don't get down like a Weinstein.
The reality is that the allure of fame/wealth/success can be blinding unfortunately which is why the shit he got away with will continue to occur.
Ms. Mann, who says the producer Harvey Weinstein raped her, began to sob when it came out in court that she had been sexually abused.
www.nytimes.com
On Friday, Ms. Mann told the jury she was raped on March 18, 2013, in a room Mr. Weinstein had booked at the Doubletree Hotel on Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. That morning, she said, she had arranged a breakfast meeting at the hotel with Mr. Weinstein and two of her friends in the film industry.
Key accuser Jessica Mann is set to face a potentially grueling cross-examination on Monday, after she shared an explosive testimony at Harvey Weinstein's rape trial on Friday.
www.dailymail.co.uk
Agreed, and what you stated is probably true about the private meetings.
However, Jessica Mann (a witness in the formal complaint) met him in the lobby of the hotel (there was a breakfast schedule in the lobby of the hotel with a few others).
Harvey Weinstein enters the hotel, tells her he is going to get a room, gets a room and tells Mann to follow him upstairs.
Rotunno then turned to the alleged rape at the Doubletree Hotel in Manhattan on March 18, 2013, the incident for which Weinstein is formally charged. She flew to New York from LA for a meeting with the mogul along with her friend Thomas, but went to his room alone.
'Knowing what happened to you in multiple other hotel rooms, you thought the best place to go was up to the room?' Rotunno charged.
Mann replied: 'I thought the best place to go where at least where he would listen to me was somewhere in private.'
When asked, 'You made the choice not to walk out the door and go up to the hotel room?' Mann replied 'It was a choice I felt I had to obey.'
Mann described her dynamic with the movie mogul as one where she was obliged to 'obey and jump.' She said it felt like Weinstein was pulling a 'bait and switch' and that Weinstein would demand 'payment' with sex.
Rotunno wondered out loud 'payment for what?' because Mann did not have any movies in the works.
Mann said: 'He just wanted to use me.' Rotunno asked: 'And you let him?' and Mann indicated she did.
That's when Rotunno accused Mann of manipulation and she conceded it was 'How I handled it and survived it, I guess you can say manipulation.'
A day after the alleged rape, Mann said she saw Weinstein in the lobby of the hotel and it was his birthday.
She said that 'probably' wished him a Happy Birthday and that he had brought his daughter Emma and wanted to have tea with her.
Mann said: 'We talked about Lana Del Ray and he said maybe I’ll have her make a song for one of my movies. Emma talked to me. I was very pleasant and tried to pretend nothing was wrong.'
