New York – When Harvey Weinstein S Landmark 2020 #Metoo Conviction He was revokedThe accuser Miriam Haley was frank about her feelings about participating in a new trial: “I definitely don’t want to Come back for that. “
But on Tuesday, Haley became the first of the accusers of Tycoon’s old film to take the witness position as prosecutors seeks to condemn him again. Weinstein, 73, declared herself innocent and denies having sexually assaulted anyone.
When Haley began what is expected to be several days of testimony, he quickly walked to the witnesses without looking at Weinstein. The former head of study, sitting among his lawyers, looked at her while passing and again when prosecutors asked him to identify him from the stand.
Haley told the jury that when he went to meet Weinstein on the margin of the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, all he wanted was to work.
But Weinstein commented on his legs, asked him for a massage and, when he realized, he asked him to give him one, he recalled.
“Did you have any interest in the defendant, Harvey Weinstein, romantic or sexually?” Prosecutor Nicole Blumberg asked Haley, 48.
“No, I didn’t, and I was there to try to find a job,” said Haley, who had been an assistant to another producer.
His testimony so far resonates closely What she told him to the previous juryAlthough it has not yet reached the date of July 2006 when he said that Weinstein did oral sex. She related previous interactions with Weinstein who alternated between being personally unpleasant and encouraging professionally for her.
Haley said he left Cannes’s meeting crying and feeling humiliated. But she accepted when Weinstein organized a basic assistant work for her at the reality show of her company “Project Runway” in June 2006.
After the concert of approximately three weeks ended and Haley thanked him by email, Weinstein reported that he had heard good things about his work and invited her to meet in a Manhattan Hotel lobby, he said when the prosecutors showed their 2006 calendar with the aforementioned meeting.
She and Weinstein spoke business, and he was “very respectful and quite charming” and talked about other potential work opportunities, he recalled.
“Were you flirting or suggesting something sexual between you and the defendant at that meeting?” The prosecutor asked.
“Absolutely not,” Haley replied.
She said that another meeting at Weinstein’s office was also pleasant and professionally, as well as a trip with him, her assistant and her driver back to her apartment, and then the Honcho of Hollywood suddenly suggested that she accompanied him to the Fashion Parades of Paris.
Haley said he had no interest in going, but that he gave a vague answer, “trying to be educated.” They said goodbye.
However, Weinstein repeatedly asked him to come to Paris with him for fashion parades, even appearing without invitation and break into his department to try to persuade her, he said.
Haley told the jury that he rejected again, but Weinstein was “insistent and overwhelming”, so he said: “I heard about his reputation with women.”
Weinstein took a step back, seemed offended and interrogated her about what she meant, she recalled. She told the jury that she had not really heard about Weinstein at that time, but she was just trying to avoid the trip of Paris.
Finally, Weinstein left the apartment and backed away, he said.
Almost two decades later, a series of accusations of sexual aggression and sexual harassment against Weinstein would energize the demands of the #MeToo movement to hold powerful men for misconduct for women.
It is expected that Haley, who has also gone with the name of Mimi Haleyi, continues to testify on Wednesday.
The new trial is happening because the highest court in New York determined that the original trial was contaminated by “atrocious” judicial decisions and harmful testimony.
The new trial includes charges based on accusations of Haley and another accuser of the original trial, Jessica Mann, who was once an aspiring actor. She claims that Weinstein raped her in 2013.
He is also being judged, for the first time, for an accusation of forcing oral sex in the former Kaja Sokola model in 2006. His claim was not part of the first trial.
Mann and Sokola are also expected to testify at some point.
Weinstein’s lawyers have argued that the three accusers agreed in sexual encounters with him hoping to get a job in the entertainment world.
Associated Press generally does not name the people who claim that they have been sexually assaulted unless they give permission to use their names. Haley, Mann and Sokola have done it.
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This story has been corrected to show that Haley has 48, no 47.
