New York – A former model with tears testified on Thursday that Harvey Weinstein He sexually assaulted her when she was 16, calling her the “most horrible thing he has ever experienced” until that moment.
Kaja (Keye’-H) Sokla, an aspiring actor and time, He told the jury In Weinstein’s #MeToo trial, the movie of the movie Onetime Hancho put his hand inside his underwear and made her touch her genitals in an apartment in Manhattan in 2002.
Sokola said he saw Weinstein’s eyes, “black and scary”, looking at her in a bathroom mirror while it happened.
Then, he said, he told him to be silent about what had happened, promoting that he had made the a-listers races like Gwyneth Paltrow and Penelope Cruz and that he could help his dreams of Hollywood come true.
“I had never been in a situation like this,” Sokola testified, while jury members fascinated notes. “I felt stupid and ashamed and as if it were my fault to put myself in this position.”
Weinstein is not accused of any crime in relation to the alleged assault, which Sokola detailed for the first time in a lawsuit a few years ago. The moment put him out of the statute of limitations for criminal charges.
Sokola is testifying because Weinstein is accused of performing oral sex at a Manhattan hotel four years later, around her twentieth birthday. Prosecutors say it happened after Weinstein arranged that Sokola was an extra in the movie “The Nanny Diaries.”
Sokola reported the accusation to the authorities a few days in the first Weinstein trial in 2020, but was not part of that case. Prosecutors added it to the trial, joining two women who testified in the first case, after their conviction was revoked last year.
Weinstein, now 73, looked down and away from Sokola while she told the previous accusation, pressing her left thumb and index finger against her face as a shield.
Sokola testified that he met the then head of study at a Manhattan restaurant in 2002, three or four days before the alleged assault. During the brief conversation, heinstein asked him if he wanted to be an actress.
A few days later, he said, he invited her to lunch, apparently to talk about acting, but in her place she took her to an apartment, where she took her to a room and then to a bathroom, he told her to take off her top and assaulted her.
“He told me to talk my clothes and I didn’t want to do that. I was panic,” Sokola testified. “And then said that if I want to be an actress, that is what the actors do in the movies, so I should get used to that. If a director says that you take off your clothes, you have to take off your clothes. I was afraid. I was afraid of him.”
Sokola avoided looking at Weinstein while walking towards the witness post, testifying for a second day after detailing his education in Poland, full in modeling and her professional career as a psychotherapist and author who recently launched a film production company. She briefly looked at Weinstein when she was asked on Thursday to point him before the court.
Weinstein declared himself innocent and denies having sexually assaulted anyone.
His lawyers argue that his accusers agreed in sexual encounters with him in the hope of obtaining film and television opportunities, and the defense has emphasized that women remained in contact with him for a while after the alleged assaults. Meanwhile, women say the then producer used the perspective of exhibiting business work to take advantage of them.
Hawk He demanded Weinstein After the industry whispers about its behavior towards women, it became a choir of public accusations in 2017, feeding The #MeToo Movement against sexual misconduct. Prosecutors have said that Sokola finally received $ 3.5 million in compensation.
Prosecutors have said they began investigating Sokola’s claims in 2020, but Establish the consultation aside After Weinstein was convicted. They revived the investigation after the highest court in New York reversed his sentence.
Weinstein’s lawyers He fought without success To keep Sokola out of trial, accusing prosecutors of “smuggling an additional position in the case” to try to strengthen the credibility of other accusers.
One of the others, Miriam Haley, Testified last week that Weinstein forced oral sex in 2006. The third accuser in the case, Jessica Mann, is expected to testify later.
Associated Press generally does not appoint accusers of sexual aggression without their permission, that Haley, Mann and Sokola have given.
