Harvey Weinstein will not testify at his sexual assault and rape trial in Los Angeles, which could be in the hands of a jury by the end of this week.

The disgraced Hollywood mogul also declined to testify in his New York trial in 2020, so it was expected that he would not testify at this one. 

Court resumed on Monday in Los Angeles after a week-long break for Thanksgiving. The prosecution rested just before the holiday, after nearly a month of grueling testimony from witnesses.

Weinstein’s defense attorneys began presenting their case today on the sex-related charges involving four women, including California Governor Gavin Newsom‘s wife, by attempting to poke holes in testimony by Jane Doe No. 1.

Mark Werksman told the judge on Monday morning that his client would not be taking the stand at the trial, which Weinstein confirmed, telling the judge that he opted not to testify.

Weinstein’s defense is expected to rest their case by Wednesday of this week. 

Weinstein, 70, is already serving a 23-year prison sentence for sex crimes in New York, and now faces seven additional felony rape and assault counts. 

Mark Werksman attorney for Harvey Weinstein leaves the Los Angeles Superior Courthouse on November 28, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.Frederick M. Brown for DailyMail.com

‘I want you to understand that you have an absolute right to testify,’ Judge Lisa B. Lench told Weinstein in the Los Angeles courtroom on Monday morning. 

She also told Weinstein that he has the right not to testify. 

‘Yes,’ Weinstein responded, confirming to the judge that he understands his rights, but that he has decided not to testify.

The confirmation came as Weinstein’s defense team began their case, which they are expected to wrap up this week after calling six witnesses.

Three different witnesses were called to the stand on Monday to testify about allegations from Jane Doe No. 1. The woman testified earlier in the trial that Weinstein raped her and forced her to perform oral sex in February 2013. 

She said the alleged incident happened at her hotel, Mr. C Beverly Hills, following the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival, where she was a VIP guest. 

‘He just walked in,’ she testified, claiming Weinstein forced his way into her hotel room in the middle of the night. 

‘I didn’t understand what was going on … I remember thinking, ‘Did he follow me?’ I don’t know him.’ 

The woman said she asked Weinstein to leave, but then she froze because she said she was scared he was going to kill her.  

‘I was panicking and started crying … He didn’t care,’ she said. ‘I wanted to die. It was disgusting. It was humiliating.’

On cross-examination, Weinstein’s attorney Alan Jackson asked her: ‘You stayed in the very room where you say you were attacked and victimized?’ The woman conceded that she had.

On Monday, Weinstein’s defense called the former general manager of Mr. C’s who worked at the hotel at the time of the alleged assault, who confirmed that Jane Doe No. 1 stayed at the same hotel weeks after the alleged assault.

The woman first reported the alleged assault in 2017, telling the jury that she only came forward because her daughter Maria, who was also a victim of sexual assault, encouraged her to do so. 

On Monday, Beverly Hills PD Detective Stephanie Frias was called to the stand by the defense team. Frias had interviewed Jane Doe No. 1’s daughter in 2017 when she reported her own assault that allegedly occurred at her high school. 

The defense asked the detective if Jane Doe No. 1 had said anything about being a victim of sexual assault when she went with her daughter to file the report. 

‘Did Jane Doe No. 1 ever tell you or mention to you her own victimization?’ Jackson asked. 

Frias responded, ‘According to my report, no.’

Prosecutor Paul Thompson later asked the detective: ‘Jane Doe No. 1 was focused on the situation with her daughter?’ 

The detective responded: ‘Correct.’

Weinstein is charged with crimes against four women: one a model, another a model and actor, a third a massage therapist.

The fourth, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker who was an actor at the time of her alleged rape and is now married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, provided the most dramatic moments at the trial so far with her emotional testimony.

Four other women who are not involved with the charges testified that Weinstein sexually assaulted them, as prosecutors sought to show he had a propensity for such acts.

Earlier this month, Judge Lench denied a motion from Weinstein’s lawyers to dismiss all of the counts against Weinstein, which they said prosecutors failed to prove.

One of Weinstein’s accusers, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker who was an actor at the time of her alleged rape and is now married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, provided the most dramatic moments at the trial so far with her emotional testimony

Jennifer Siebel Newsom is pictured with her husband California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris  in 2021

Before the week-long break, the judge warned jurors not to consume any trial-related media singling out ‘any movie trailers that may be related to this case or movies that may be related to this case – well, not related to this case, but related to this issue.’

Without saying the name of the movie, she was clearly referring to the new release of ‘She Said,’ a film about the New York Times reporting of the 2017 stories that put Weinstein at the center of the #MeToo movement.

Once the jury was excused, Weinstein’s lawyer entered a new not guilty plea for him to an amended indictment that drops four of the 11 previous counts against him. 

The move became necessary when prosecutors said earlier this week that the accuser known in court as Jane Doe #5 would not be appearing to testify and that the counts would no longer be pursued. They would not give a reason when asked.

Weinstein spokesman Juda Engelmayer said in response to the dropped charges that ‘this witness could have felt uneasy about being scrutinized knowing the truth of the matter.’

Nor did prosecutors explain why Mel Gibson was missing. They never called the actor, director and one of the trial’s most anticipated witnesses to the stand. 

The judge had ruled at the start of a trial that Gibson could testify about a conversation he had with the massage therapist Weinstein is charged with sexually assaulting.

Mel Gibson (pictured in April 2022) will not testify at Weinstein’s trial, despite the judge ruling he could tell the court what he learned from one of the disgraced movie mogul’s accusers

Jane Doe 3 said the alleged assault occurred after a massage session at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills in 2010 when a naked Weinstein followed her into the bathroom and masturbated

In moving to have them dismissed, Weinstein attorney Alan Jackson went through the seven remaining counts against his client and provided a likely preview of the defense’s closing arguments.

Jackson said the allegations that in 2013 Weinstein raped and sexually assaulted an Italian model known at the trial as Jane Doe 1 were especially unfounded, arguing that there is no convincing evidence that ‘the interlude occurred at all.’

Jackson said there was no evidence that there was ‘any restraint whatsoever,’ as required for a count of sexual battery, in the part of the case involving model Lauren Young.

Young, the only Weinstein accuser to testify at his trials in both New York and Los Angeles, said she was paralyzed by fear when Weinstein blocked her from leaving the bathroom, masturbated in front of her and groped her breasts in a hotel in 2013.

Jackson said there was ample evidence, including emails the two exchanged in the ensuing years, that Siebel Newsom and Weinstein had a consensual sexual encounter that she later reframed as rape.

‘The defendant’s motion is denied,’ Lench responded. ‘I think there is enough evidence to send all these counts to the jury, and I will do so.’

Weinstein is two years into a 23-year sentence for his conviction in New York and has been held in a Los Angeles jail throughout the trial.