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Disgraced filmmaker, Harvey Weinstein allegedly used the pseudonym ‘Max Poster’ to check into the Montage Hotel, where he was accused of masturbating on an aspiring actress.
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Lauren Young had testified at the convicted sex offender’s Los Angeles rape trial on Monday that she had met Weinstein about a script she wrote in 2013, when, she claimed, actress Claudia Salinas locked her and the film producer in the bathroom of his suite at the Montage Hotel.
On Tuesday November 8, Andy Flor, the hotel’s custodian of records, seemed to confirm at least part of her story, saying Weinstein frequently used aliases at the hotel, including Max Poster and Harvey Heller.
Flor also confirmed that he stayed at the hotel under one of those aliases in February 2013, in Room 520, at the time that Young claims Weinstein cornered and masturbated on her.
Also on Tuesday, model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez testified she wore a wire around Weinstein to try and record him admitting to groping her. Cops were nearby while she hung out with the producer at the hotel, with one officer even pretending to be a TMZ reporter as to not blow his cover.
Weinstein, 70, was previously convicted in New York of rape and sexual assault, and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
He is now facing another 11 counts of sexual battery by restraint, with another of his alleged victims testifying on Tuesday how the former Miramax head grabbed her breast as she posed for a photo shoot.
If convicted, Weinstein could face life in a California prison.
In court on Monday, Young described in brutal detail how she was an aspiring actress and screenwriter in February 2013 who had set up a rare meeting with Weinstein through Claudia Salinas, who was his personal assistant at the time.
She said the former movie mogul was distracted and uninterested in anything she had to say, and suggested she might be a reality television host on a show like America’s Next Top Model, which his company helped produce.
At one point, Young said Weinstein said he had to get ready to go present an award to Quentin Tarantino at the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival and suggested she accompany him to his room to continue the discussion.
So Young said she followed Weinstein into his suite at the Montage and into his bathroom.
Young added that she thought there would be another door on the other side, and he was leading her somewhere else — but was shocked to see actress Claudia Salinas close the door behind them, and that she was ‘trapped.’
That is when, she said, ‘Harvey Weinstein started the shower and immediately took off his clothes.’
‘I was disgusted,’ she continued. ‘I had never seen a big guy like that naked.
‘I actually laughed nervously and thought ‘no, no, no,” she added as she began to cry.
Young said, Weinstein simply continued their conversation.
‘He was just staring at me talking,’ Young recalled.
‘I had never seen someone that big naked, so I just couldn’t fathom what was even happening to me right now,’ she said.
‘He was just talking about the business and other actresses. And saying this is what they do, this is how I know you can act.’
‘I kept saying ‘no no no,’ she recounted. ‘He just ignored what I said.’
‘Everything happened so fast.’
At that point, Young said, Weinstein got into the shower while Young tried to make her escape.
But, she said, Weinstein got out of the shower and blocked her from the door before she could get away.
‘He said, ‘We’re just gonna talk,’ I said ‘no, no no no.’
Still, Weinstein continued to harass her, and soon started ‘touching’ her.
Young said she backed up toward the sink and turned away from the movie mogul, but he unzipped the back of her dress and pulled it down to around her hips.
‘He was grabbing my breasts and jerking off, like squinting at me, not looking at me,’ she said. ‘Holding me there and talking to me.’
‘He was just masturbating and groping me.’
She said she kept saying ‘no’ throughout, but he continued for several minutes, and also tried to touch her vagina — though she blocked him with her hands from penetrating her.
‘I was really grossed out by his body and the look he was giving me,’ Young said. ‘I was wondering: ‘How do I get out of here safe, what am I going to do? What are they gonna do to me?’
‘I was very numb feeling,’ she continued. ‘I felt like I was outside of my body watching what was happening, I couldn’t move I was frozen. I was so scared.’
‘I was scared of Harvey Weinstein … that he would hurt me, or send someone to hurt me, or ruin my career, or make my life hell.’
After groping her for several minutes, Young said, ‘he went back to groping my right breast even harder’ before ejaculating on the towel he was using and leaving the bathroom.
‘I was in so much shock, I was wondering how I was going to leave, and if they were going to let me leave,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.’
‘I pulled up my dress and I exited the bathroom.’
‘I saw Claudia Salinas right there. I shot her an evil look. She didn’t say anything. She looked at me. She had this evil look. Like a smirk. Like she roped me in on something.’
She said she also saw Weinstein changing clothes before she walked out of the suite to a car.
‘I sat in my car and cried and was in complete shock. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I should call the cops.
‘I wondered ‘What do I do? This guy is so powerful.’ I didn’t know what to do. I called my friends, got a hold of them, messaged them.’
Ultimately, Young said, she decided not to tell police about what she had experienced.
‘I was scared at that point that he might have an in with the cops or was corrupt like that,’ she said. ‘I knew he had a lot of power I was really scared.’
But Weinstein’s famed defense attorney, Alan Jackson, tried to rip apart her testimony, by showing the jury photos of the bathroom door on a hinge.
He claimed that her ‘dramatic description’ of the door sliding closed past Salinas’ face was ‘completely false.’
‘Do you want to change your statement about being trapped and locked in that bathroom?’ Jackson asked. ‘You’re describing a full-blown kidnapping, right?’
Jackson pointed out that Young had told the detective she was ‘positive’ door was locked because she was ‘tugging’ on it.
‘And the problem is, the door doesn’t lock from the outside, and it’s not a sliding door, right?’ he pushed.
She responded: ‘I felt trapped.’
‘I’m not asking what you felt, I’m asking what you said,’ he fired back.
‘I felt locked in there — I was describing how I felt,’ Young responded.
Jackson hit back: ‘You felt that you were locked in there, but you were not locked in there. You felt that you were being sexually assaulted, but you were not.’
‘I was definitely sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein,’ Young said.
