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Tag Archives: testifies
Gwyneth Paltrow trial – live: Goop star testifies in ski collision trial amid GoPro video mystery – The Independent
- Gwyneth Paltrow trial – live: Goop star testifies in ski collision trial amid GoPro video mystery The Independent
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- Daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Accuser Takes the Stand Inside Edition
LIVE: Treasury Secretary Yellen testifies before the Senate on the 2024 fiscal year budget — 3/16/23 – CNBC Television
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- Bank Crisis: Yellen Speaks To Senate; First Republic Bank Ponders Sale| Investor’s Business Daily Investor’s Business Daily
- Watch live: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testifies on Biden’s 2024 budget proposal The Hill
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Tesla video promoting self-driving was staged, engineer testifies
Jan 17 (Reuters) – A 2016 video that Tesla (TSLA.O) used to promote its self-driving technology was staged to show capabilities like stopping at a red light and accelerating at a green light that the system did not have, according to testimony by a senior engineer.
The video, which remains archived on Tesla’s website, was released in October 2016 and promoted on Twitter by Chief Executive Elon Musk as evidence that “Tesla drives itself.”
But the Model X was not driving itself with technology Tesla had deployed, Ashok Elluswamy, director of Autopilot software at Tesla, said in the transcript of a July deposition taken as evidence in a lawsuit against Tesla for a 2018 fatal crash involving a former Apple (AAPL.O) engineer.
The previously unreported testimony by Elluswamy represents the first time a Tesla employee has confirmed and detailed how the video was produced.
The video carries a tagline saying: “The person in the driver’s seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself.”
Elluswamy said Tesla’s Autopilot team set out to engineer and record a “demonstration of the system’s capabilities” at the request of Musk.
Elluswamy, Musk and Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. However, the company has warned drivers that they must keep their hands on the wheel and maintain control of their vehicles while using Autopilot.
The Tesla technology is designed to assist with steering, braking, speed and lane changes but its features “do not make the vehicle autonomous,” the company says on its website.
To create the video, the Tesla used 3D mapping on a predetermined route from a house in Menlo Park, California, to Tesla’s then-headquarters in Palo Alto, he said.
Drivers intervened to take control in test runs, he said. When trying to show the Model X could park itself with no driver, a test car crashed into a fence in Tesla’s parking lot, he said.
“The intent of the video was not to accurately portray what was available for customers in 2016. It was to portray what was possible to build into the system,” Elluswamy said, according to a transcript of his testimony seen by Reuters.
When Tesla released the video, Musk tweeted, “Tesla drives itself (no human input at all) thru urban streets to highway to streets, then finds a parking spot.”
Tesla faces lawsuits and regulatory scrutiny over its driver assistance systems.
The U.S. Department of Justice began a criminal investigation into Tesla’s claims that its electric vehicles can drive themselves in 2021, after a number of crashes, some of them fatal, involving Autopilot, Reuters has reported.
The New York Times reported in 2021 that Tesla engineers had created the 2016 video to promote Autopilot without disclosing that the route had been mapped in advance or that a car had crashed in trying to complete the shoot, citing anonymous sources.
When asked if the 2016 video showed the performance of the Tesla Autopilot system available in a production car at the time, Elluswamy said, “It does not.”
Elluswamy was deposed in a lawsuit against Tesla over a 2018 crash in Mountain View, California, that killed Apple engineer Walter Huang.
Andrew McDevitt, the lawyer who represents Huang’s wife and who questioned Elluswamy’s in July, told Reuters it was “obviously misleading to feature that video without any disclaimer or asterisk.”
The National Transportation Safety Board concluded in 2020 that Huang’s fatal crash was likely caused by his distraction and the limitations of Autopilot. It said Tesla’s “ineffective monitoring of driver engagement” had contributed to the crash.
Elluswamy said drivers could “fool the system,” making a Tesla system believe that they were paying attention based on feedback from the steering wheel when they were not. But he said he saw no safety issue with Autopilot if drivers were paying attention.
Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Kevin Krolicki and Lisa Shumaker
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Witness to Megan Thee Stallion Shooting Testifies – Rolling Stone
The man who says he witnessed the street-level shooting that landed Megan Thee Stallion in the hospital testified Tuesday that he saw an initial muzzle flash near two women fighting then a “very agitated” man alleged to be Tory Lanez “firing everywhere.”
Sean Kelly, who was in his bedroom shortly after 4 a.m. on July 12, 2020, told jurors he peered out his window on Nichols Canyon Road in Los Angeles and saw four people fighting and shouting at each other during a “quite violent” confrontation.
Kelly was called as a defense witness at Lanez’s felony assault trial because he told a defense investigator in January 2021 that he believed he saw an initial muzzle flash closest to a woman’s hand during a purported physical altercation between Megan and her former friend Kelsey Harris near an open door of Lanez’s Cadillac Escalade. His testimony, intended to generate reasonable doubt in the minds of jurors, may have done the opposite.
Kelly testified under oath that while he believes one of “the girls” fired the first shot, he saw the “smaller gentleman” fire four or five subsequent shots in quick succession, causing a woman to fall to the ground bleeding. And he told jurors the men viciously beat a female victim as she lay in a “fetal position” on the ground.
“I want to be clear, I never saw a gun, OK, I just saw flashes,” Kelly testified.
“Whose hand did you see the flashes from first?” George Mgdesyan, Lanez’s lawyer, asked.
“The girl,” Kelly replied. “But they were all together, they were very close together.”
Kelly waffled on whether Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, was still inside the vehicle at this point. At first, he placed Peterson inside the SUV during the initial alleged gunshot. Then he vacillated, telling Deputy District Attorney Alexander Bott that Peterson — repeatedly referred to as the “shorter” male — may have been outside already.
“This wasn’t something that took a long time,” he said.
“What happened next? Did you see the gentleman join?” Mgdesyan questioned, asking if Kelly recalled telling an investigator that it looked like Peterson was trying to wrestle the gun away from Harris.
“I just saw he was very angry, shouting, and then the flashes then came from him. I never saw a gun,” Kelly said. “They were all fighting, so I just assumed he grabbed the gun.”
“I didn’t hear him say, ‘Excuse me, can I have the gun? It’s my turn,” Kelly said, eliciting laughter from several observers in the packed courtroom.
“Did you state that it looked like he was taking the gun away from her?” Mgdesyan pressed.
“I believe that they were fighting. Then he had the gun, and he started shooting,” Kelly said.
On cross examination, Kelly again described seeing the shorter male – meaning not Peterson’s taller driver, Jauquan Smith – firing a weapon.
“Were his arms outstretched?” Bott asked.
“Yes,” Kelly said.
“What was he pointing at?” Bott asked.
“He was firing everywhere,” Kelly responded.
Kelly said the “short guy” fired four or five shots while shouting a “torrent of abuse.”
“He was going crazy,” Kelly said, “really agitated.”
Kelly testified that it was after he heard the four or five gunshots that the female victim who had been “kicking all the time” fell to the street “bleeding.”
“She crawled and stumbled across the road into my neighbor’s driveway, which is a small bridge, and she curled up in ball,” Kelly testified.
At one point, he recalled seeing multiple figures that included the two men “beating” a female victim on the ground. “She was in a fetal position. She was all curled up on the floor and they were punching and kicking her. They were all beating her,” he testified.
Asked what happened next, Kelly said: “The larger gentleman stood up and said the police were coming. They picked the girl up, and to me it seemed they were going to throw her into the river. There’s a stream (nearby). It looked like they were about to throw her in there.”
He described the river as a concrete channel about 15 feet deep.
“It appeared to me when I was on the phone that they were trying to kill her,” Kelly said. “They dragged her across the street, then got in the car and sped off.”
Asked if he remembered telling the defense investigator that the first muzzle flash attributed to the girl happened inside the vehicle, he said, “Yes,” but he also thought the first flash was fireworks.
“Can I just say, while this was all going on, my son was with me. I told him to get on the floor. I was more concerned about him,” he testified.
Peterson, 30, has pleaded not guilty to three felony charges in the high-profile case: assault with a firearm causing great bodily injury; concealing a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and the recently added count of discharging a firearm with gross negligence.
If convicted as charged, the Alone at Prom rapper is facing up to 22 years and eight months in prison and subsequent deportation since he’s a citizen of Canada.
On Monday, prosecutors attempted to add two new witnesses tampering charges based on testimony from Megan and Harris about “statements the defendant made in the car, offering them a million dollars” to stay silent about the shooting. Judge David Herriford questioned why prosecutors waited so long to file the additional charges and denied the motion.
‘Going through torture’: Megan Thee Stallion testifies against Tory Lanez | Megan Thee Stallion
Megan Thee Stallion delivered emotional testimony on Tuesday in the trial of Tory Lanez, the fellow musician and former friend who allegedly shot her following a party in Los Angeles.
The Texas-born rapper, whose real name is Megan Pete, shared the most in-depth account yet about the moment that led to the shooting in 2020. She described how the attack left her with constant pain in her feet and said the reliving the incident in the public eye had been “torture”.
“I don’t wanna be on this Earth,” Pete said at one point during a daylong testimony. “I wish he woulda shot and killed me if I knew I would go through this torture.”
Pete was often overcome with emotion and sniffled softly as the Los Angeles county prosecutor Kathy Ta questioned her about the early morning shooting on 12 July 2020.
Ta showed Pete and the courtroom police body camera footage of Pete being ordered out of a large black vehicle and hobbling to the sidewalk with her feet bleeding. Video of the rapper crying heavily in the back of an ambulance caused Pete to wipe her nose as she relived it.
“I can’t believe I have to come in here and do this,” Pete, 27, said while on the witness stand.
Tory Lanez, whose real name is Daystar Peterson, faces over 22 years in prison if he is convicted on all three felony counts he faces. Peterson, 30, has maintained his innocence and has accused Pete of lying.
Throughout the prosecutor’s questioning, Peterson’s attorney, George Mgdesyan, fervently objected several times during Pete’s recounting of the events that led to the car ride that precipitated the shooting.
Pete said the incident had taken place following a party at Kylie Jenner’s house. An argument broke out after Peterson revealed to Pete’s longtime friend Kelsey Harris that he and Pete had been intimate. Harris is also slated to testify during the trial.
At some point during the car ride, Peterson turned around in the vehicle and told Pete to stop lying to Harris about their relationship. Pete said on Tuesday she and Petersonhad become friends after they both lost their mothers, and they had sometimes had sexual relations with each other. Harris, who had a “crush” on Peterson, did not know about the musicians’ relationship until the verbal disagreement, Pete testified.
Peterson later called both women “bitches and hos” as tensions erupted, Pete testified. The two also verbally sparred over their musical careers.
Pete told the courtroom she had asked to be let out of the car near the Hollywood Hills home she was staying in, but as she walked away, Pete said, she heard Peterson yell “dance, bitch”, and when she turned her head to face him he was hanging partly out of the car with a gun pointed at her. Then he began firing.
Shortly after driving away from the scene, police stopped the vehicle that Pete, Harris, Peterson and his security guard were in.
Pete said that Peterson had begged her and Harris not to tell the police that she had been shot by him because he had prior legal issues and didn’t want to get into more trouble. Pete added that Peterson had offered the two former friends $1m to keep quiet.
“Why are you not worried about how I am? You just shot me!” Pete recalled thinking when Peterson asked for her silence.
Peterson was ultimately arrested for having a concealed weapon and after months of speculation, Pete went on Instagram Live to say Peterson had shot her.
The aftermath of the shooting has played out largely online and has struck a chord in the hip-hop community, spotlighting how the treatment and abuse of Black women are largely ignored in society. During Tuesday’s testimony, Pete described the rap game as a “boy’s club” and said she knew she would be hated because she was “telling on one y’all’s friend”.
During cross-examination, Mgdesyan focused much of his questioning on where Pete and Peterson were physically located before the shooting. He also challenged Pete’s interviews and statements she has made to police, on social media and in a televised sit-down with Gayle King that aired on CBS in April.
The exchanges between Mgdesyan and Pete were tense, with Mgdesyan digging into the minutiae of the hours before the shooting, including how much Pete had to drink at Jenner’s home, why she insisted on leaving with Peterson and which direction Pete was walking in before Peterson allegedly shot her.
Mgdesyan also homed in on an interview that Pete had with the then Los Angeles police detective Ryan Stogner days after the incident, wherein she told police that she initially didn’t know she had been shot.
Pete responded that she was not comfortable with talking to police due to concerns about police violence against Black people, but she changed her mind when she saw Peterson and his management trying to “get ahead” of the story by planting fake news items in blogs.
“I didn’t want it to be a big mess like it is now,” Pete testified of her hesitance to tell the truth early on.
Lindsey Graham testifies before Georgia grand jury in election probe
A sheriff said that Graham entered the courthouse around 8 a.m.
A spokesman for Graham did not respond to a request for comment on the grand jury proceedings, which are legally secret. A spokesman for the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Graham’s testimony follows an extended legal challenge to block his appearance that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which this month declined to overturn lower court rulings requiring him to appear.
The South Carolina Republican and Trump confidant was first subpoenaed in July by the Fulton County district attorney’s office, which sought to question Graham about phone calls he made to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in the weeks after the 2020 election, and other issues related to the election.
Trump personally urged Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in the state, where Biden claimed victory by fewer than 12,000 votes. Trump has insisted that the election there was marred by fraud, although multiple legal inquiries have found no evidence of that.
Raffensperger later told The Washington Post he felt pressured by other Republicans, including Graham, who he said echoed Trump’s claims about voting irregularities in the state. He claimed that Graham, on one call, appeared to be asking him to find a way to set aside legally cast ballots.
Graham and his attorneys have strongly rejected that characterization, describing the senator’s interactions with Raffensperger as “investigatory phone calls” that were meant to inform his decision-making on whether to vote to certify the election for Biden and to inform other Senate work.
In court filings, Graham has claimed that his actions were legitimate legislative activity protected by the Constitution’s “speech or debate clause” and that he should not be required to answer questions from a grand jury.
In September, U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May ruled that Fulton County prosecutors could not question Graham about portions of his calls that were legislative fact-finding.
But May cleared the way for prosecutors to question Graham about his coordination with the Trump campaign on post-election efforts in Georgia. The judge also said Graham also could be asked about his public statements about the 2020 election and “any alleged efforts to ‘cajole’ or encourage” Georgia election officials “to throw out ballots or otherwise alter Georgia’s election practices and procedures.”
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit later upheld that lower court ruling. The Supreme Court rejected a final appeal by Graham this month, paving the way for his appearance this week. Graham’s attorneys have said he has been told he is a witness, not a target, in the Fulton County investigation.
Graham’s testimony came as the grand jury appears to be nearing a conclusion in its work. Jurors have heard testimony from several Trump lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Boris Epshteyn. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who also unsuccessfully sought to quash a subpoena in the case, appeared before the panel last week.
District Attorney Fani T. Willis also has sought testimony from other high-profile Trump advisers including Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows; former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former House speaker Newt Gingrich. All three continue to pursue legal efforts to quash their subpoenas — ongoing appeals that could delay proceedings.
The 23-person grand jury is authorized to meet until May 2023. But Willis said earlier this year that she hoped the panel would wrap up its work by the end of this year. The panel does not have the power to issue indictments, but would make its recommendations in a report to Willis, who would then weigh potential charges.
During a court hearing in Florida last week where Flynn was challenging his subpoena, Assistant Fulton County District Attorney Will Wooten told a judge there are “very few” witnesses remaining.
“The likelihood is that this grand jury is not going to be hearing testimony much longer,” Wooten said, according to CNN.
Bailey reported from New Orleans and Brown from Atlanta. Ann E. Marimow and Tom Hamburger contributed to this report.
Trumps had role in fraud scheme, Allen Weisselberg testifies at company’s trial
Former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg testified in court Thursday, describing how Donald Trump and two of his children allegedly participated in a scheme to defraud tax authorities.
Weisselberg said Donald Trump, or at times Eric Trump or Donald Trump Jr., signed checks to pay up to $100,000 for private school tuition for Weisselberg’s grandchildren. Weisselberg said he then instructed the company’s controller to deduct the $100,000 from his salary, allowing him to report a smaller income. Copies of some of the checks signed by the Trumps have been shown in court.
Weisselberg said the first time Trump signed a tuition check, Weisselberg told him, “Don’t forget, I’m going to pay you back for this.” The payback, he said, was the salary reduction.
Two Trump Organization entities and Weisselberg are accused of more than a dozen counts of fraud and tax evasion. Weisselberg entered a guilty plea in August, admitting to charges filed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office accusing him of receiving more than $1.7 million in untaxed compensation.
Weisselberg, who is still on the Trump Organization’s payroll, has over the first two days of testimony described a litany of benefits he and several other executives received for which he said their salaries were similarly reduced to avoid paying taxes.
He said for himself and several other executives, the salary reductions were then mitigated by hefty bonus checks paid to the executives as if they were independent contractors for Trump Organization entities.
“Donald Trump always wanted to sign the bonus checks” before he became president in 2017, Weisselberg said.
That practice ceased during the next two years after an internal review led to changes at the company, he said.
“We were going through a company-wide cleanup process, making sure that since Mr. Trump was now president, everything was being done properly,” Weisselberg said.
Jane Rosenberg
Weisselberg said the funds delivered as independent contractor payments were used to set up Keogh retirement plans, tax-deferred pension accounts designed for people who are self-employed.
Defense attorneys for the Trump Organization have said the company did nothing wrong, and laid the scheme squarely at Weisselberg’s feet, saying he hid the salary reductions and independent contractor payments from the Trumps.
Trump Organization attorney Alan Futerfas asked Weisselberg Thursday, “What human being did you scheme with?”
Weisselberg replied, “Jeff McConney,” referring to the company’s controller, who previously testified during the trial. McConney was granted immunity in exchange for grand jury testimony in the case, and blamed Weisselberg for the scheme.
Futerfas continued with questions seeking to differentiate the Trumps from the executives who worked beneath them.
“Did you conspire with any member of the Trump family?” Futerfas asked.
“No,” Weisselberg replied.
“Did you scheme with Jeff McConney?” Futerfas asked.
“Yes,” Weisselberg replied.
“Did you scheme with any member of the Trump family?” Futerfas asked.
“No,” Weisselberg replied.
Later, Futerfas asked, “Aside from family members, you were among the most trusted people they knew. Is that correct?”
“Correct,” Weisselberg replied.
Soon after, Futerfas asked, “Are you embarrassed about what you did?”
Choking up, Weisselberg replied, “More than you can imagine.”
Earlier Thursday, Weisselberg said under questioning by a prosecutor that other executives at the company were active participants in, and beneficiaries of, similar salary and bonus arrangements.
Weisselberg described arranging for his son Barry’s family to live in a newly-renovated apartment on New York’s tony Central Park South. He said the location was convenient for Barry Weisselberg’s job as manager of an ice rink and carousel run by the Trump Organization in Central Park. Allen Weisselberg said his son paid $500 out of pocket and $500 from his salary per month to rent the apartment, which he described as a “below market” rate.
At the time, Allen Weisselberg and his wife lived in an $8,200 per month company-owned apartment under a lease agreement signed by Donald Trump himself.
Allen Weisselberg said he provided his son’s tax paperwork for preparation to the outside accountant who was in charge of the entire Trump Organization’s annual tax account. Allen Weisselberg said his son’s reported salary at the time “was probably lower than it should have been.”
Peter Stambleck, an attorney for Barry Weisselberg, declined to comment.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom Testifies At Harvey Weinstein Rape Trial; Witness Breaks Down In Tears On The Stand – Deadline
UPDATE, 5:06 PM: He knew something was off when we were at the SAG Awards and the way Harvey looked at me,” Jennifer Siebel Newsom told defense lawyer Mark Werkman, jurors and onlookers at Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial of her husband and then Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom’s knowledge by 2017 of the producer’s alleged assault of her several years beforehand. “I dropped hints along the way,” California’s First Partner added in what was often emotional, tearful and graphic testimony this afternoon.
Scrutinized by Werkman about when and how she informed her now Governor spouse of the alleged rape by Weinstein in his suite at the Peninsula Hotel over 17 years ago, Siebel Newsom was frequently overcome by sobs. Centering on the political connections of frequent big bucks contributor Weinstein over the decades to various high profile Democrats, the defense lawyer remained oblivious to the witness’ anguish Monday. “Well, is that just politics, that you just take money from someone who has done something despicable to your wife unless everybody finds out about it?” Werkman said in his cross-examination this afternoon.
Identified as Jane Doe #4 in Weinstein’s West Coast trial, Siebel Newsom revealed her true name last month before testimony in the case began in Judge Lisa Lench’s DTLA courtroom. Pillared on the stand today when the defense had their turn, Siebel Newsom is expected to be back for more testimony tomorrow in what could be the closing days of this trial.
With Weinstein facing almost a dozen sex crimes charges and looking at 140 years maximum behind bars if found guilty, sources on both sides have expressed that Siebel Newsom’s testimony could prove pivotal in the case
Earlier in the day, after initially returning from the lunch break, the witness described in vivid detail going to meet Weinstein in the Beverly Hills hotel when she was young and unmarried filmmaker/actress charmed by the attention the then mogul gave her. “I was confused,” Siebel Newsom explained when she was contacted suddenly by a Weinstein assistant to be told the meeting would be in the producer’s suite. “I was a little hesitant. I was expecting to meet him where the noise and the buzz was and there was all this conversation. I was just confused, and I didn’t know what to do.
Let into Weinstein’s “opulent” suite by an assistant, Siebel Newsom stated how things quickly took a turn for the worse and the deadly. Called to join Weinstein in the bathroom, she found him masturbating. Overcome and admitting she found some memories of the incident “confusing,” the witness told Deputy DA Marlene Martinez’ and the court how Weinstein explained what was happening to her. “He was asserting himself and tried to tell me that he, he mentioned several actresses names, he tried to tell me that this was the industry, and in a way like threaten me.”
Allegedly hauling then Jennifer Siebel into the suite’s main bedroom, Weinstein began assaulting her again, putting his fingers inside her, the witness said.
He knows this is not normal, he knows this is not consent,” Siebel Newsom asserted in a loud voice with Weinstein sitting mere feet away at the defense table with his lawyers.
“I could tell he just needed, he was so determined, just so scary, just all about him and his pleasure his need for satisfaction so I just did it to make it stop,” she added of Weinstein tried putting his “weird and messed up” penis inside her and having non-consensual sex with her and then performing forced cunnilingus on her. “Oh, I just made some noises to get him to ejaculate faster,” Siebel Newsom said of then masturbating Weinstein.”
“There was silence on my part,” Siebel Newsom told the court after Weinstein ejaculated. “I just remember not having words. I just wanted to get the f*ck out of there, pardon my language,” she said, crying again. “I just remember being shocked by everything, Siebel Newsom said of the small talk Weinstein made afterwards and her leaving his suite. It was like the Twilight Zone, I just walked down this hallway it felt like forever,” she noted. “It was like an out-of-body experience. I just remember I got my car at the valet.”
Siebel Newsom admitted on the stand that she did not go to police after the incident. A decision she indicated was in part because of a bad experience she had with law enforcement after her sibling’s death years before She also admitted she did have personal and political contact with Weinstein in the years since the alleged assault – a fact the defense will surely continue to emphasis in their questioning of the witness on Tuesday.
PREVIOUSLY, 12:27 PM: “He was really focused on telling me I was special, and I was different,” Jennifer Siebel Newsom told a downtown Los Angeles jury Monday of her first meeting with Harvey Weinstein.
“He was like the kingmaker, he was the top of the industry,” she said on the stand about encountering Weinstein in 2005 at the Toronto Film Festival. “I was a working actress, I had little roles, guest-starring roles on TV shows and films, and I was working on some short films, I’d been in two features … but they were small roles.”
Expected to continue her testimony this afternoon, Siebel Newsom broke down in tears at one point this morning when asked to point out Weinstein in the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center courtroom. With two security guards in the front row of Judge Lisa Lench’s courtroom, Siebel Newsom took the stand to questions from Deputy L.A. County D.A. Marlene Martinez after several other witness had testified Monday.
Having first revealed in late 2017 the interaction she had with Weinstein years beforehand, Siebel Newsom went public via her lawyer on October 10 that she was Jane Doe #4 in the incarcerated producer’s L.A. trial. “Like many other women, my client was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein at a purported business meeting that turned out to be a trap,” attorney Elizabeth Fegan said in a statement. “She intends to testify at his trial in order to seek some measure of justice for survivors, and as part of her life’s work to improve the lives of women.”
Siebel Newsom’s testimony comes after her husband, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, widely seen as a potential candidate for U.S. president at some point, was easily reelected last week.
Weinstein is facing grand jury indictments of four counts of rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, one count of sexual penetration by use of force, plus one count of sexual battery by restraint and sexual battery in incidents involving five women in L.A. County from 2004 to 2013. Sentenced to 23 years in prison by a Manhattan jury in March 2020 for multiple sex crimes, and now on appeal, the 70-year old Weinstein faces 140 years imprisonment if found guilty in L.A.
In his opening statement in the trial last month, Weinstein lawyer Mark Werkman dismissed the Siebel Newsom, the First Partner of California, as no more than “just another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood” if she hadn’t married now-Gov. Newsom. As testimony from other Jane Does and witness commenced last month in the West Coast trial, information appeared in the press of contributions Weinstein made to Newsom’s various campaigns over the years, as well as encounters one-time filmmaker and actress Siebel Newsom — who married Newsom in 2008 when he was mayor of San Francisco — and her husband had with Weinstein after the alleged assault in late 2004-early 2005 in L.A.
In late October, Lench curtailed the defense’s ability to question Siebel Newsom about her 2007 communication with Weinstein over an affair her then-boyfriend Newsom had with a campaign aide’s spouse. The judge also limited the prosecution’s reach to ask about texts Siebel Newsom had with Louisette Geiss in 2015 about Weinstein and comments about former First Daughter Malia Obama’s internship at the Weinstein Co. in early 2017.
Weinstein’s trial is expected to run until the end of the month before the case goes to the jury.
Stewart Rhodes: Oath Keepers leader testifies 2020 election was ‘unconstitutional,’ paints himself as anti-violence
CNN
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Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the right-wing Oath Keepers who prosecutors say called for a “bloody revolution” to keep then-President Donald Trump in power, painted himself as an anti-racist Libertarian who believed the 2020 election was unconstitutional as he testified in his own defense on Friday.
Rhodes is the first of the five defendants charged with seditious conspiracy in federal court in Washington, DC, to testify.
The courtroom was packed during his testimony, and Rhodes choked up several times discussing his family, suicide rates among veterans and other subjects highlighted by his lawyer, Phillip Linder. He spoke directly to the jury and appeared very comfortable on the stand.
Rhodes explained to the jury that he didn’t believe either Trump or Joe Biden won in 2020 because the election itself was “unconstitutional.”
“I believe the election was unconstitutional, and that made it invalid,” Rhodes testified. “You really can’t have a winner of an unconstitutional election.”
Rhodes told the jury that, as he saw it, election laws in several states were changed by “executive fiat” and not through the state legislature.
“In multiple states especially in the swing states … you had them putting in new rules in direct violation” of state laws, Rhodes said.
“Everyone kept focusing on the computers” and other theories of voter fraud, Rhodes said, instead of the constitutional issues, which they needed to discuss before figuring out “whether there’s fraud on the ground.”
Rhodes did not detail any specific laws that were changed. CNN has found no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
Prosecutors have alleged that Rhodes wanted Trump to remain in power and that the militia leader supported a “bloody revolution” to secure the presidency.
Rhodes told the jury Friday how he was honorably discharged from the military and went on to study law at Yale, focusing his attention on the Bill of Rights – which Rhodes called “the crown jewel of our Constitution” – and protecting civilian rights in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks.
Rhodes, a self-described Libertarian, testified that he founded the Oath Keepers in 2009 to “reach, change and inspire” people about what rights the Constitution afforded them.
Pushing back on what he saw as narratives that the Oath Keepers were racist or white nationalists, Rhodes said the organization traveled to various cities for racial justice protests, claiming the group protected “minority business owners” in Ferguson, Missouri.
“Frankly we kind of embarrassed the police, Rhodes testified, “because we showed them how to do it right, protecting the business owners while still respecting the rights of the protesters.”
Oath Keepers rules, Rhodes claimed, specifically bar any member who “advocates for the overthrow of the United States.”
During the first several weeks of the seditious conspiracy trial against the far-right organization, prosecutors presented evidence that the Oath Keepers stockpiled weapons at a hotel in Virginia on January 6 as part of a so-called quick reaction force. Prosecutors alleged that the five defendants intended to use those weapons in case called upon by Trump to stop the transfer of power to Biden.
Rhodes told the jury that wasn’t the case and claimed that the QRF’s were set up at an event the Oath Keepers attended to “respond in case there is an emergency,” including if his men were ever injured.
The Oath Keepers also used QRFs every time they provided security, Rhodes said, including several events in Washington, DC. After the election, Rhodes testified he was concerned Antifa would “attack the White House,” and claimed the leftist organization was threatening to “drag Trump out” if the president refused to concede.
In November, “I was concerned that this might actually happen,” Rhodes told the jury, citing his rhetoric on a recorded meeting prosecutors showed the jury in which Rhodes allegedly said that “there’s going to be a fight.”
If Antifa did try to attack the White House, Rhodes said that “President Trump could use the Insurrection Act, declare this an insurrection, and use myself and other veterans to protect the White House.”
No such attack at the White House occurred.
Rhodes is expected to continue his testimony on Monday.