An aspiring actress and screenwriter who met Harvey Weinstein in 2013 to present a screenplay, testified that a business meeting went horribly wrong, in which she was sexually assaulted by a former Hollywood producer who suddenly undressed, groped her breasts and masturbated.
Lauren Young, who previously testified at Weinstein’s trial in New York in 2020, stood in the criminal trial of an already convicted rapist in Los Angeles last Friday as her testimony continued through Monday. In New York, prosecutors called her as an unaccused “previous misdeeds” witness, but at the current trial, her allegations carry a charge of sexual battery with restraint.
Young — referred to as Jane Doe #2 in the Los Angeles trial — is the only woman to testify in both trials.
Although Weinstein was convicted of rape and sexual assault in New York, where he was sentenced to 23 years in prison, the Los Angeles trial is based on 11 entirely new charges, which have nothing to do with the case in New York. (Weinstein is currently appealing the New York conviction.)
Young testified that she was trapped in a hotel bathroom by Weinstein, who unzipped her dress and assaulted her, against her will, saying, “No, no, no.”
She told the jury she came to Montague in Beverly Hills, California to meet with Weinstein in the hotel lobby to pitch a screenplay. The meeting was arranged by a woman named Claudia Salinas, who had met Young at an industrial dinner the previous year, and told Young that she knew Weinstein and could help connect her, so she could view her text. After a brief discussion downstairs at Montage with Weinstein and Salinas, Young says she was asked to go upstairs, and she thought the meeting would continue professionally. When she was delivered upstairs, she was directed by Salinas to a room that ended up becoming the Weinstein Hotel Suite, and once brought into the hotel bathroom, Salinas closed the door and was left alone with Weinstein.
Young told the jury she was “in disbelief.” She added, “This was a girl who I thought was my new friend…I couldn’t believe she would do this to me – another girl.”
Young said that Weinstein suddenly undressed, jumped into the bathroom and prevented him from going out the door, because he was masturbating and clutching her breast. She testified that Weinstein then tried to grab her vagina, but she used her hands as a shield to prevent him from penetrating her, as he thrust his hands under her dress.
“I was disgusted,” Young told the jury. “I’ve never seen such a big naked man.” She said she weighed about 115 pounds, and thought Weinstein could have been 300 pounds. “I was really weak and he was a really big guy,” she added.
“I wanted to run, but I didn’t think I could,” Young added. “I couldn’t understand what was happening to me.”
Young said she backed off toward the sink to try to get away from Weinstein, but he kept talking to her and walking around, as if there was nothing wrong. ‘ He said, ‘It’s okay, we’ll just talk,’ and then tell her the other actresses are doing this and ‘This is how I know you can act. ”
As she pulled away from him in an attempt to avoid him, he approached her and unzipped the back of her dress. “He was grabbing my breasts and flicking me and staring at me with that look,” Young told the jury, sobbing a little. “He was just masturbating and groping me… I was in complete shock… I was shocked by his body and the look he was giving me.”
In the courtroom, the attorney general, Deputy Attorney General Paul Thompson, showed jurors the dress Young was wearing on the night of her alleged assault. He also asked her about Weinstein’s genitals because she drew a picture of Weinstein’s body for investigators, after he explained that his testicles were abnormal. “His penis was so disgusting,” Young said. “It looked like it had been cut and sewn again…I haven’t seen a whole bag…Literally I just saw a penis.” She added, “I wasn’t trying to look at it, but it was something I hadn’t seen before.” (Weinstein’s genitals appeared numerous times at the trial, with both the prosecution and defense asking the standing women to describe his testicles, which had been removed, due to surgery.)
Young said Weinstein shrugged her off by saying “no,” and proceeded to finish and then tossed a towel on the bathroom floor. She remembers making it to the bathroom door, but Weinstein was on the way. You remember thinking, “How am I going to get out of here safely?”
“It all happened very quickly,” she said on the podium. “I was in so much shock… I just wanted to get out of there ASAP.” I felt “numb” as “out of my body, like I couldn’t move. I froze,” she told the jurors.
After the assault, she left the bathroom and saw Salinas and “named her an evil look” because she felt she had “tightened me with something.” Young got into her car and cried. She immediately went to tell two of her friends what had happened. (In the last week of the trial, one of those friends, a musician named Ryan Beatty, testified to confirm her story.) Young told the jury she didn’t know if she should call the cops because she knew Weinstein was strong, and he wasn’t. Not sure if the authorities will help her. “I knew he had a lot of strength,” she testified. “I was so scared and so scared.”
Young did not see Weinstein again. But the day after the alleged assault in 2013, Barbara Schneuys, an executive from The Weinstein, called her offices for a meeting. (Schnawes, who started as Weinstein’s assistant and rose through the ranks at The Weinstein Company to become an executive producer on “Project Runway,” is mentioned in testimony from several of the women in Weinstein’s experiences, all of whom explain that she helped coordinate business meetings with Weinstein that ended up being They were allegedly assaulted.) Young told the jury that she attended that meeting with Schneuys out of “fear of retaliation” because after Weinstein allegedly assaulted her, she thought an agency might contact her and ask them to leave her. “I didn’t know if I wouldn’t come [to the meeting] Young said. “I was very scared.”
After the meeting, Schneeweiss followed up via email, but Young never responded. “Barbara said to send her head shots and I didn’t,” Young said on the podium. “I thought she was involved.” Days after the assault, she also received an invitation to one of Weinstein’s Oscar parties, but she did not attend.
In 2018, Young called the hotline and reported the alleged assault to the police, which eventually led to her being called as a witness in the New York trial.
Speaking in 2018, Young explained, “At that point, there were other people coming out and I felt safe doing it. I wanted to prevent this from happening to anyone else.”
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