Rosy Perez, who was a popular actress of “Do the Right Thing”, backed her actress friend Annabella Sciorra in her testimony against the disgraced movie moghul Harvey Weinstein. She claimed that Sciorra had confided in her. She also stated that Sciorra could not report the rape incident to police because she feared Weinstein would destroy her.
Perez testified that she called Annabelle sometime in 1993 and tried setting up a plan to hang out. And this was when Annabelle broke down on the phone. Rosy said, “She said something bad happened and she said, ‘I think I was raped,’ and her voice started shaking…She started crying.”
She did not name the person who raped her during that conversation. However, several months later, Sciorra told Perez that she was raped and sexually exploited by Weinstein, who was an influential figure in Hollywood at the time. When Perez asked her to go to the police, Annabelle claimed that she could not, because she feared he would destroy her.
It should be noticed that more than 80 women have accused the Oscar-winning producer of sexually exploiting them – either through rape or other forms of sexual exploitation. The current trial is an attempt by the prosecution to establish the movie moghul as a serial sexual abuser who had assaulted and harassed a lot of women.
If he is convicted, he may be behind bars for life. There were attempts to stop Rosy Perez from testifying. However, the judge, James Burke overruled the objections and allowed her to testify. Weinstein has pleaded not guilty in the New York trial and has denied any sort of non-consensual sex. The lawyers for Weinstein have repeatedly been stating that all the so-called sexual encounters that he has been blamed for have been consensual.
