Mel Gibson can testify against Harvey Weinstein in rape, sexual assault trial, says judge

Veteran Hollywood actor Mel Gibson will be allowed to testify in support of his friend and one of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers in the ongoing rape and sexual assault trial against disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein, as per the Associated Press. In a Friday ruling by Judge Lisa B. Lench in Los Angeles Superior Court, Gibson's name emerged as one of the witnesses. The accuser, a masseuse, is known as Jane Doe #3 to protect her identity. She has accused Weinstein of sexual battery by restraint (touching an intimate part of a person without their consent while they are restrained).

Also Read:US: Harvey Weinstein sex assault trial opens in Los Angeles

Before over 80 accusations of rape, sexual assault, and sexual misconduct against him surfaced in October, 2017 through exposes in The New York Times and The New Yorker, Weinstein was one of the most powerful people in Hollywood. He was dismissed from his production company, suspended by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and banned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Georgina Chapman, Weinstein's wife, said on October 10, 2017, that she was leaving him. Their divorce was not finalised until 2021.

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Allegations against Weinstein, which date back to the 1970s, opened floodgates in the American film industry and launched the #MeToo movement. Dozens of women and men came forward to allege some kind of sexual misconduct against other powerful people in Hollywood like Kevin Spacey, Bryan Singer, Morgan Freeman, James Franco, Aziz Ansari, Matthew Weiner, and so on.

Weinstein, 70, is currently serving a 23-year sentence at Wende Correctional Facility.

As per the prosecutors, Weinstein got a massage from a woman at a hotel in Beverly Hills, California in 2010, he followed her into the bathroom, naked, and masturbated. Weinstein has pleaded not guilty to the charge and has said every sexual activity was consensual.

The lawyers of Weinstein had urged the judge not to allow Gibson, saying what he learned from the masseuse is not a "fresh complaint."

The prosecutors have said that Gibson brought up the name of the movie mogul by chance, leading the woman to display a traumatic response. Gibson gauged from her reaction that she had been sexually assaulted by Weinstein.

Weinstein's attorneys have argued that if Gibson is allowed as a witness, theybe allowed to cross-examine him about the anti-Semitic and racist remarks he has made in the past. The prosecutor side argued that the said remarks are not relevant in the current trial and may engender bias against Gibson