Rosie Perez at Weinstein trial recalls Annabella Sciorra saying she was raped – Page Six

Actress Rosie Perez took the stand in the Harvey Weinstein trial on Friday — telling jurors of the dramatic moment when her friend Annabella Sciorra whispered to her over the phone, “I think something bad happened to me.”

“She was whispering, like this,” Perez, a surprise prosecution witness in the disgraced producer’s sex assault trial, told jurors in a hushed, barely audible voice.

“And I said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ and she said, ‘I think something bad happened.’”

The “Do the Right Thing” star was called by prosecutors to bolster and corroborate testimony by Sciorra, who told jurors Thursday that Weinstein barged into her Manhattan apartment and raped her during the winter of 1993-1994.

Sciorra admits she told no one in the hours and days after the alleged attack in her Gramercy Park apartment. She was stunned, she told jurors, and suffered the misconception that rape was an attack by a stranger, something that happened in a dark alley.

But weeks later, she said, she confided in Perez — without, at first, naming her alleged attacker.

“She said, ‘I think I was raped,’ and the way she said it was so strange, because she was still whispering and she said, ‘I was raped,’ and her voice started shaking, and I said, ‘Do you think or did it happen?’

“And … she started crying,” testified Perez, who told jurors she had called her pal to ask if she wanted “to go to a nightclub and have fun.”

“I said, ‘Who did it?’” Perez told jurors.

Sciorra wouldn’t say, replying only, “I woke up on the floor and my nighty was up,” Perez said.

When Perez urged her friend to go to the police, Sciorra, she said, began crying and repeating, “I can’t. I can’t.”

Sciorra then hung up, Perez said.

“I kept trying to call her back all night long … and she wouldn’t pick up the phone.”

It was months later, Perez testified, that she realized the name Sciorra would not speak was “Harvey Weinstein.”

Perez had heard rumors that Weinstein had allegedly sexually harassed Sciorra in London, as Sciorra was filming “The Innocent Sleep,” which was not a Weinstein movie.

Perez put two and two together, she testified, during a call to Sciorra, who confirmed that Weinstein was the man she said raped her.

“She was crying and saying ‘I tried to fight back. I tried, I tried!’” Perez recounted of the London phone call.

“She said to me never to tell anybody,” Perez told jurors. But Perez insisted that the police be called, she testified.

“I can’t,” Sciorra responded, according to Perez. “He’d destroy me. He’s going to destroy my career.”

On cross examination, defense lawyer Damon Cheronis asked Perez if she and Sciorra, with whom she’d remained close friends, had talked about the alleged incident over the years.

Perez answered no.

Cheronis asked Perez if she, herself, had ever called the police about Sciorra’s allegations, and Perez again said no.

“She didn’t want to talk about it,” Perez testified.

“You have a girlfriend who tells you something like that, you don’t know what to do,” Perez testified.

“She was my very, very good friend. It was shocking. I was in shock. I was in a panic. I remember that I kept calling her, repeatedly, crying, begging her to pick up the phone.”

The defense also confronted Perez about having told journalist Ronan Farrow that the London phone call was the first time she’d heard of the alleged rape — months, not weeks, after the fact.

“Does anybody have reading glasses?” Perez quipped, to laughter, when Cheronis handed her a copy of Farrow’s New Yorker article to read.

“I don’t recall the full extent of my conversation with Mr. Farrow, but I do know he did not put everything we discussed in the article,” Perez said.

Asked if she and Sciorra had continued to attend events held by the Weinstein Company over the decades, Perez answered, “Everyone did.”

“Did you talk to him?” Cheronis asked.

“Only if he said ‘hello,’” Perez said. “In one instance, I said ‘Hello’ sarcastically, back.”

Additional reporting by Laura Italiano

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