The upcoming trial of movie producer Harvey Weinstein could see Mel Gibson taking the stand to testify for the prosecution. A judge ruled on Friday that the Mad Max actor could be called upon to support the claims of “Jane Doe 3”, who has alleged that Weinstein sexually assaulted her back in 2010. The woman, who was a masseuse, was later said to have relayed details of the incident to Gibson during a massage session.

As reported by Variety, It was agreed by Judge Lisa B. Lench that Gibson could be called to the stand, but there were some caveats around what the defence team will and won’t be able to ask the actor during cross-examination. This included the denial of a request to question Gibson about “racist and anti-Semitic statements” he has previously made, but the question of whether Gibson has a grudge with the producer has been allowed to go ahead.

According to defence attorney Mark Werksman, there has been animosity between the pair since Weinstein published a book entitled “Perspectives on the Passion of the Christ”, which was a challenging piece about Gibson’s controversial movie. The defence went on to add that Gibson is “now trying to rehabilitate his image by becoming a champion of the #MeToo movement.” However, the prosecutors divulged that Gibson’s testimony to investigators included him commenting that the claimant acted with a “PTSD reaction” when Weinstein’s name was mentioned in conversation, which led to her breaking down in tears.

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While Mel Gibson has been the subject of a number of controversial statements over the last decade, and while the defense team possibly wanted to use that to discredit Gibson as a witness, the judge refused to allow it due to its lack of relevance to the case. It was commented:

Harvey Weinstein is currently facing 11 charges of sexual assault, which were said to have taken place between 2004 and 2013, and any conviction and sentence that comes from these claims will be on top of the 23-year sentence he is already serving after being found guilty of sexual assault and rape at a trial in 2020. Weinstein is currently waiting to have an appeal hearing against those charges, but the 140 year sentence that he could face if found guilty in this latest trail could see the result of that appeal being irrelevant when it comes to Weinstein spending the rest of his life behind bars.

LENCH: “How is it relevant if he’s racist toward African Americans or Latinos?”

WERKSMAN: “It goes to his unwillingness to grant equal status to someone who is not of his ilk. He has a white-supremacist view. Someone with white-supremacist values might have no problem perjuring himself against a Jewish defendant.”

LENCH: “I’m not going to allow you to get into his other comments that may indicate his general demeanor about, as you say, ‘people who are not of his ilk. I will allow you to question him about whether or not there is personal animosity between the two of them.”