A model whose police report caused sex crime prosecutors to investigate Harvey Weinstein in 2015 — two years before his massive downfall in 2017 — testified in Weinstein’s rape trial Tuesday in felony court in downtown Los Angeles.
Ambra Batilana Gutierrez – the non-accused witness in Weinstein’s current trial – was at the NYPD operation center in 2015. She teamed up with police to wear a wire and tap Weinstein, after her allegations that he touched and positioned her breasts. His hand over her skirt during a casting meeting. Gutierrez’s involvement with cops led to the investigation of Weinstein, but former Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance chose not to prosecute the case and Weinstein was not charged. After that first brawl with the authorities, Weinstein continued to wield power as one of the most influential producers in Hollywood for more than two years, until further allegations against him sparked the #MeToo movement. Gutierrez’s voice recording became a powerful gun when it was later published in Ronan Farrow’s Weinstein Exhibit in The New Yorker in October 2017.
The model has become one of the most prominent accusers linked to Weinstein’s fall, having spoken out about her allegations several times over the past few years. When her story hit the press in 2015 and Weinstein was arrested, it received huge attention in the tabloids. She has since said in interviews that she believes Weinstein planted negative stories about her, and that many forces helped empower and cover up Weinstein. (In this Los Angeles case, she was identified as “Ambra B.” in order to protect her identity, but due to her public appearances in the past, diverse She uses her full name.)
On Tuesday, Gutierrez was called by the prosecution as a witness to “past misdeeds” — in other words, the DA’s office presents its version to the jury, in order to establish a pattern of behavior by Weinstein, but none of the charges have been brought against Weinstein. That she faces at trial stem from her allegations. During her testimony, the jury was shown extensive surveillance video of Gutierrez with Weinstein during the alleged incidents and heard audio recordings that Gutierrez had secretly seized, jointly with the NYPD.
Gutierrez came to New York City from her native Italy, and met briefly with Weinstein at a party at Radio City Music Hall that she attended with her modeling agency on March 26, 2015. When Weinstein introduced himself to her, Gutierrez didn’t know who he was. She told the jury that Weinstein paid close attention to her and said she looked like Mila Kunis. She introduced Weinstein to her agent, and the next day, her agent booked a meeting with Weinstein.
The next day, March 27, 2015, Gutierrez went to a casting meeting at Weinstein’s Tribeca offices in downtown Manhattan. An assistant brought her into an office where she was alone with Weinstein, and she sat down beside him on the sofa, showing him her modeling bag, which included pictures of her underwear and bikini. Looking at the photos, Weinstein asked if her breasts were real. “It was weird. No one ever asked,” Gutierrez told the jury, comparing her meeting with Weinstein to typical casting meetings. She said Weinstein asked, “Are you sure?” Then he grabbed her breasts.
“At first, I just stand idly by,” Gutierrez testified. “I was shocked.”
Gutierrez said Weinstein asked her for a kiss and then she “come back”. She remembers putting his hand on her leg, and “he was trying” to get under her skirt.
“I said, ‘Sorry, I don’t do these things with people I don’t know,'” Gutierrez told the jury, and he hit back. She explained that he tried asking for a kiss several times, but when he realized she was refusing, he pulled her away on the sofa.
After the accident, Gutierrez was “trembling” and felt “about to pass out”. Weinstein left the meeting, and an aide told her that Weinstein wanted to invite her to the Broadway play he produced, Finding Neverland, which was in the theater that night. Gutierrez did not tell anyone in Weinstein’s office what had just happened, explaining, “I felt that if he did it in his office when people were out, I didn’t feel safe there…I felt like I needed to go to the police.”
Gutierrez immediately went to her agency to tell her clients what had happened, and said she wanted to go to the police station. She said her agent tried to stop her from going to the police because of Weinstein’s strength in the industry, but she went anyway. “I couldn’t understand. I felt like something bad happened, and when something bad happened, you go to the police,” she said in court.
She went with her agent to the police station and reported the incident of groping on the same night that it allegedly occurred. The first station sent her to SVU where she spoke with the authorities. (In court on Tuesday, a detective who was at the police station the night Gutierrez reported the incident in 2015, testified and told the jury that he remembered her as “shaking” and “crying” while mascara squirted down her face and “thought” she might need to vomiting.”)
While Gutierrez was at the police station, Weinstein sent her an email asking her to meet him on Broadway, since his assistant had called her earlier that day. The police ordered Gutierrez to call Weinstein, so they could record the call, and she spoke to Weinstein while the police taught her about how to talk to him. In court, jurors heard a recording of this call in which Weinstein said, “I felt bad… I don’t want to be aggressive with you… I like you.” On that call, police ordered Gutierrez to bring his previous comment about her fake breasts, and when she did, Weinstein said “they feel beautiful,” but “I can tell” if they were fake. “I feel immediate sympathy for you,” said Weinstein, who called her “sweetheart,” “honey,” and “baby.” In the course of talking about potential acting roles, Weinstein offered to be a “mentor,” which he described as when “an older man teaches younger women.”
Acting on police instructions, Gutierrez made plans to meet with Weinstein the next day. “The police officer was telling me what to ask,” she explained to the jury. With his assistant on the line, during another call the next morning, Weinstein booked tickets for “Finding Neverland,” and arranged to have his chauffeur take Gutierrez into her apartment and escort her to the theater; Next, he would ask his driver to bring her to the Tribeca Grand Hotel where he was planning to meet her for a drink.
Gutierrez went to the Tribeca Grand wearing a police cord to record Weinstein. The jury played that recording Tuesday in court, too.
At the hotel, Gutierrez had coffee downstairs with Weinstein. During that meeting, he said, “If you want to spend time with me, I will guide you.” At another point, he complimented her, “You are more beautiful than Adriana Lima…You are amazing.” Suddenly, he was heard saying, “I’m going upstairs to my room. Let’s go.”
Weinstein told Gutierrez that he was going to take a shower in the room. When she expressed her discomfort about entering the room and putting her in a situation where anything could be sexual, he said, “We won’t do that…we will do other things, but not that.” He mentioned a massage and Gutierrez said, “No, I don’t want that.” Weinstein replied, “Well, we’ll see.” In the recording, he is heard saying: “Don’t be shy” and “Don’t worry. I’m not an opportunist.”
Although undercover cops were surrounding Gutierrez, in an attempt to leave Weinstein, she told him that she had forgotten her jacket downstairs in the hallway. He insisted on going with her downstairs. “He always followed,” Gutierrez said on the podium. In an attempt to intervene, an undercover cop pretending to be a gossiping TMZ reporter and began questioning Weinstein, who became enraged. When this plan didn’t work, Gutierrez continued walking with Weinstein through the hotel, leading her upstairs to a room. “I was just trying to be with the flow,” Gutierrez testified. “I knew the police were around me.”
Part of Gutierrez and Weinstein’s taped conversation took place in an elevator full of people. Weinstein told Gutierrez not to embarrass him in front of others. “You should come here now,” Weinstein asked on the tape. She said, “I don’t want to touch … I want to go downstairs.”
“Honey, don’t fight with me in the hall,” said Weinstein. Gutierrez asked, “Why yesterday did you touch my chest?” Then Weinstein said, “Don’t spoil your friendship with me for five minutes.” At another point, he told her, “If you do this now, don’t call me again” and “You’ll miss out on big opportunities.”
“I just wanted to get out of there,” Gutierrez told the jury. She realizes that none of the police officers followed her up to the floor where Weinstein was taking her, and he insisted that she enter the room with him. “I didn’t really want to go into the room,” Gutierrez said, but she didn’t know if she should stay to gather more information on the NYPD. “At that point, I wanted to leave. I felt lonely,” she said. “I didn’t like it. I didn’t want him to let me into a room where I’d be on my own.” She left to go to the elevator, and Weinstein followed her again and insisted on a drink at the hotel bar downstairs, although she had told him several times she didn’t drink alcohol. The police had previously told her to go to Bathroom Whenever I felt uncomfortable, I went to the hotel bathroom downstairs where a policeman was waiting for her, and left the hotel safely.
After Gutierrez’s testimony and the jury heard recordings and monitored hotel surveillance, Weinstein’s defense attorney, Alan Jackson, briefly questioned Gutierrez, asking very few questions.
“The main incident all this is about is that Mr. Weinstein touched your breast once — for a second?” asked Jackson Gutierrez.
“I don’t know if it’s a second,” she said. “It felt much longer. It felt like an eternity.”
Jackson told Gutierrez that in previous interviews with investigators from the DA’s office, she said she “may have been a second.” Weinstein’s lawyer, by dissecting more of her private statements, has continued to peruse transcripts from Gutierrez’s previous interviews with authorities and urge her for her exact words. In an interview with police, Gutierrez said Weinstein touched her “knee,” but Jackson noted that during her testimony in court, she told the jury that Weinstein touched her “top of her leg.”
Gutierrez responded to Jackson: “My knee is part of my leg… what’s the difference?”
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