NEW YORK _ Prosecutors called a friend of a Harvey Weinstein accuser to the witness stand Tuesday to corroborate allegations of sexual assault against the fallen Hollywood titan.
Elizabeth Entin, an author and former roommate of Weinstein accuser Miriam Haley, told a Manhattan jury that when the powerful producer first started pestering her friend she pegged him as "a pathetic older man" who would ultimately be able to control his urges.
"Did you ever tell her not to continue to see him?" defense attorney Donna Rotunno asked Entin on cross-examination.
"I didn't think that was my place, and I certainly thought that an older man could certainly contain himself," Entin responded.
Entin was the second friend of an alleged Weinstein victim to testify. On Friday, "Do the Right Thing" actress Rosie Perez was called to corroborate allegations Weinstein raped "The Sopranos" actress Annabella Sciorra inside her Gramercy Park apartment in the winter of 1993-94.
On direct examination, Entin said a "distraught" Haley told her she had been assaulted by Weinstein in his SoHo loft sometime after the alleged incident on July 10, 2006.
"She seemed very nervous. She said that she had gone to the apartment of Harvey Weinstein, and she assumed it was, you know, work-related. She came in, he started rubbing her shoulders, kissing her, and then she said, 'No, no,' and he wouldn't stop," Entin said.
"She said, 'I'm on my period.' He said, 'I don't care,' at which point, he threw her down _ and she was still saying stop _ and he pulled off her underwear, pulled out her tampon and he went down on her while she was still saying no."
"I said, 'Miriam, that sounds like rape.'"
Not long before the alleged assault, Entin said, Haley had called to tell her Weinstein had come over to the pair's Alphabet City apartment, begging Haley to come to Paris with him _ but was ambushed by their pet Chihuahua as he pushed his way inside.
"She said he, just, you know, pushed his way in and we started kinda laughing about it because apparently my dog _ this small chihuahua _ was chasing him around and he was kind of frightened about it," Haley said.
"So we laughed about that. He said, 'What is this thing? Get it away from me.'"
Asked whether he was afraid of small dogs while leaving court on Tuesday, Weinstein responded, "Do I look like I'm afraid of chihuahuas?"
Entin said she first met Weinstein in mid-2006 during an event at Cipriani Downtown with his then-"Project Runway" production assistant Haley.
"He put his arm around Miriam, his hand like on her stomach, and kind of pulled her to him and said, 'This is the hottest woman I know,'" Entin recalled.
"She was trying to be very polite, and I felt ... very uncomfortable."
Weinstein, 67, faces two counts of predatory sexual assault, two counts of rape and one count of criminal sexual act. He maintains his innocence and faces life in prison if convicted on the top charge.
Rotunno peppered Entin with questions regarding her first impressions of the producer and reasons why she didn't steer Haley out of his path.
"And you thought it was very silly and funny and kind of stupid because this older guy was trying to get your friend?" she asked.
"Correct," Entin responded.
"And he had an interest in your friend?"
"Which is very different from sexual assault," Entin replied.
