Harvey Weinstein’s testicles have once again become a major issue in a sex-crimes criminal proceeding against him. The disgraced producer’s abnormal testicles have apparently been discussed in some detail during his ongoing Los Angeles rape trial. Per Variety, Weinstein’s defense told jurors that his testicles are abnormal because of a 1999 surgery. Prosecutor Paul Thompson provided details, too. He said in his opening statement that “because of an infection, his testicles were actually taken from his scrotum and put into his inner thighs,” Variety said. Weinstein’s defense has used his alleged testicle issues to challenge Jane Doe No. 1, who says he sexually assaulted and raped her in a hotel room nearly five years ago. Jane Doe No. 1 told jurors that Weinstein made her perform oral sex on him, allegedly telling her “suck him and suck his balls.” On cross-examination, defense attorney Alan Jackson asked Jane Doe No. 1 how she told authorities that Weinstein’s “balls were in your mouth” if he did not have them, Variety reported. “The reason that you changed your story is because you realized at some point that Mr. Weinstein does not have testicles in his scrotum,” Jackson reportedly said. The woman insisted that she did not change her account to police, and she said she told them about his atypical genitals. “I recall that he didn’t have one,” Jane Doe No. 1 reportedly testified. “It was like empty skin.”
It appears that jurors will hear about Weinstein’s testicles multiple times; Variety notes that “the topic is expected to repeatedly come up during testimony from various women.”
There was also extensive discussion of Weinstein’s testicles during his New York City trial in winter 2020. Jessica Mann, who testified that Weinstein raped her in early 2013, told jurors: “The first time I saw him fully naked … I thought he was deformed and intersex. He has an extreme scarring that I didn’t know, maybe [he] was a burn victim …” Mann also said: “He does not have testicles, and it appears that he has a vagina.” When Mann described his genitals, Weinstein dropped his head. Weinstein was convicted of rape in the third degree for attacking Mann. After the rape, Mann went to the bathroom, which led to her learning more about Weinstein’s bodily issues. “I’m just trying to collect myself for a minute, and I see a needle in the trash can, and I flip out, and I grab it, and I look at it, and I remember the name, because I wanted to Google it, and I was …” Mann testified, starting to weep. “It was the realization that he stabbed himself with a needle, and there has to be blood because he was inside of me … I was in shock over that.”
Jurors in Weinstein’s New York trial were also shown five photos of him, and at least one was a full-frontal image of him nude. While the public or press was not able to see the photos, comments from then-prosecutor Joan Illuzzi suggested that they might corroborate the accusers’ comments about his body. “It is not the practice of the District Attorney’s Office to ever … humiliate [a] defendant,” Illuzzi explained in arguing why the photos should be admitted. “There were 72 photographs taken, and we’re going to be asking for the admission of seven of them … We believe the photographs … we do think they’re very, very important for the jury to see.” Weinstein’s hygiene was also discussed in the Manhattan proceedings. Mann said: “It was very bad … He smelled like shit — excuse me, sorry, like poop. He just was dirty.” At another point, Mann said: “He had a lot of, a lot of blackheads, and the texture of that was uncomfortable.” In addition to being convicted of third-degree rape for assaulting Mann, Weinstein was convicted of committing a criminal sexual act in the first degree. Weinstein has maintained that he never engaged in nonconsensual sexual activity.
Asked for comment on the present-day testicle discourse, a representative for Weinstein said: “if you look at many of the women’s testimony, there’s a lot of contradictory information. He’s either deformed or not deformed, he can either get erect or not, every woman has a different story and they can’t all be true.”
