Actress Paz de la Huerta met with members of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office on Monday regarding allegations that Harvey Weinstein raped her in 2010, according to her attorney Mark Heller.
Heller said members of the special crimes division were “very receptive to having a meeting with us,” adding “they will access the facts and the evidence and make a determination.”
Paz de la Huerta is not one of the victims in the upcoming trial against Weinstein, who faces two counts of predatory sexual assault, one count of criminal sexual act in the first degree, and one count of each of first-degree rape and third-degree rape. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and his trial is expected to begin on September 9.
On Tuesday, Heller said his client, de la Huerta, met with a prosecutor and investigator while she was in Paris and this latest meeting was a follow-up to that meeting, citing that she had been out of the United States until recently.
Both Heller and de la Huerta have another meeting with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office tentatively scheduled for this Thursday.
One of Weinstein’s defense attorneys, Donna Rotunno, told CNN, “Ms. de la Huerta’s narrative has been reviewed and considered several times already and each time, been rejected by the New York D.A.”
“We are thoroughly confident that there is nothing more about her claims to be considered. This seems to be little more than a publicity stunt,” she said.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office declined to comment to CNN regarding the meeting and de la Huerta’s allegations.
In November 2017, then-NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce described de la Huerta’s case as credible because of her “ability to articulate each movement of the crime, where she was, where this happened.” However, the case later stalled.
What she says happened
CNN previously reported that in October 2010, 12 years after first meeting Weinstein on the set of the film “Cider House Rules,” de la Huerta said she ran into him at a club in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood, where both she and Weinstein lived.
She accepted a ride home from Weinstein and when they arrived at her apartment, de la Huerta said he insisted on joining her for a drink.
That’s when the first alleged assault occurred.
“He pulled my dress up and unzipped his pants and raped me,” de la Huerta said.
In a 2017 interview with CNN, de la Huerta recalled being in a state of shock, traumatized and in disbelief following the alleged rape.
“He finished what he did, and he told me he’d be calling me,” she said.
Nearly two months later, de la Huerta said Weinstein showed up in the lobby of her apartment one night. She said she reluctantly let him upstairs and he raped her again.
“The first time I was in complete shock and it happened so quickly. The second time, I was terrified of him,” she said. “In a million ways I knew how to say no, I said ‘no’.”
