In the next few weeks, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and Hip-Hop’s tycoon Sean “Diddy” combs will go to trial in the separate courts of Manhattan. The two defendants face different positions, different judges and different potential punishments.
But the procedure will share at least one element in common: testimony of a clinical and forensic psychologist named Dawn Hughes.
The next judicial cases will not be the first time that Hughes has played a key role in the dramatic legal sagas in the celebrity and power nexus in the era after#metao. In recent years, Hughes has taken the position of witnesses in other high -profile sexual behavior judgments that attracted national attention.
When NXIVM’s sexual cult leader Keith Raniere went to trial in 2019, Hughes was present to explain to jurors how sexual abusers in “Gaslight” series to his victims. Two years later, Hughes testified at R. Kelly’s federal trial, telling the jury that the R&B singer had subjected victims to “psychological entrapment.”
Raniere was declared guilty of extortion, sex trafficking and possession of child pornography. R. Kelly was sentenced in 2021 for an organized crime charge and eight positions of violation of the Mann Law, a law that prohibits them from transporting people through state lines “for any immoral purpose.”
Hughes reached a new level of national consciousness after testifying at the Johnny Depp-AMM defamation trial. He took the stand in May 2022, during the second month of the case, and issued his professional judgment in unequivocal terms.
“Mrs. Heard was a victim of the violence of the intimate couple,” Hughes told the jurors inside a court room with wooden panels in Fairfax County, Virginia. She had based that evaluation in the almost 30 hours that he spent evaluating Heard’s ex -wife. He vehemently denied his abuse claims.
Heard finally lost the defamation case. However, the result of the Depp-Heard trial obviously did nothing to reduce the esteem of Heard’s lawyer for Hughes. In an interview, Elaine Charlson Bedehoft described Hughes as “an exceptional expert, probably the best expert I’ve had in 40 years of practice.”
“It is extremely detailed. It is extremely thorough. When you go on to talk about any aspect of the case, it has thoroughly investigated it and has reviewed all the evidence,” Bedehoft added. “He is able to speak with a jury in terms of the secular person … to be able to communicate some of these very difficult areas such as domestic violence and rape.”
Hughes rejected an interview request, saying in an email that “does not talk to the press or the media on current matters.”
Hughes’ professional specialties include interpersonal violence, traumatic stress and anxiety disorders, according to their website. It maintains an independent practice in New York City, where she is a clinical psychology assistant professor at the Newyork-Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical College hospital.
Elizabeth Geddes, a former federal prosecutor who was part of the legal team who secured a conviction against R. Kelly in Brooklyn in 2021, said that Hughes is an expert in explaining to jurors what many perpetrators of sexual abuse have in common, as well as behaviors commonly exhibited by victims of sexual misconduct.
“Prosecutors trust people such as Dr. Hughes to help jurors understand certain behaviors that may not seem at first sight,” such as the typical tactics of abusers to maintain control over victims and why some victims do not immediately report assault or harassment of police officers, Geddes said.
Geddes added that the extensive experience of Hughes, something that Geddes took advantage of while looking to put R. Kelly behind bars, gives Hughes “a lot of credibility” with jurors.
The combs lawyers have resisted the prosecutors’ plans to call Hughes as an expert witness. In a 35 -page motion presented earlier this month, the rapper team asked a judge to prevent him from taking the position, arguing in part that his testimony would be to “promote defense as an experience” and must be “excluded in its entirety.”
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The combs team motion includes the presentation of the dissemination of expert witnesses of federal prosecutors, which says that the “testimony of Hughes” is expected to explain how the general dynamics of victimization is an abuse of power and control where the perpetrator is involved in egocentric behavior to satisfy their own goals and desires, regardless of the needs, wishes and welfare of the victim. “
Judge Arun Subramanian, who supervises the case of the combs, said Friday that he plans to govern on the reach of Hughes’ testimony next week.
In the case of Weinstein, Judge Curtis Farber ruled that Hughes can provide testimony about the psychological and traumatic effects of sexual violation and aggression.
It remains to be seen how Weinstein’s lawyers will try to pierce Hughes’s experience while defending their customers. Weinstein faces a violation position in third degree and two positions of first -degree criminal act. Peines face positions of sex trafficking, extortion and conspiracy to participate in prostitution.
Both men declared themselves innocent and have denied all the accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior.
In at least one aspect, Hughes is probably aware that testifying during megawatt tests could have a cost. When he took the position in the middle of the case of Depp-Heard, his WebMD profile was flooded with negative criticism. The social network was dominated by the pro-dp feeling at that time, and the revisions accused Hughes of being biased against men.
She never publicly addressed the digital fire storm. The reviews were withdrawn after they became the object of news reports.
