A Polish former model testifying through tears Thursday at the trial of Harvey Weinstein said the disgraced movie mogul sexually assaulted her when she was a minor at age 16.
Kaja Sokola, 39, alleged in a New York criminal court circumstances surrounding an alleged assault in 2002 when she met with Weinstein in a Manhattan apartment.
“I felt terrified because I hadn’t been in such an intimate situation before,” Sokola testified vividly, noting that when he assaulted her, she saw Weinstein “watching us through the mirror” in the bathroom.
“I’ll never forget this,” she said.
Sokola is being heard this week in criminal court for the first time, as one of three accusers in a 2020 New York case alleging Weinstein committed multiple sexual assaults.
Weinstein isn’t charged regarding the supposed 2002 event involving Sokola since it lies beyond the statute of limitations timeframe.
On Wednesday, Sokola testified that Weinstein also sexually assaulted her in spring 2006, in a Manhattan hotel when she was 19, claims the Miramax co-founder denies.
The two other accusers — onetime production assistant Miriam Haley and then-aspiring actress Jessica Mann — testified at Weinstein’s original trial.
Their testimonies played a crucial role in sparking the #MeToo movement almost ten years ago, but now the case is seeing renewed attention as Weinstein prepares for another trial in New York.
His 2020 convictions on charges relating to Haley and Mann were overturned last year by the New York Court of Appeals, which ruled that the way witnesses were handled in the original trial was unlawful.
Sokola said she was a 16-year-old aspiring actress when she met Weinstein at a dinner with other models.
The filmmaker, who was about two decades older than her, contacted her shortly after when she was around 40 to suggest having lunch together. However, as recounted during testimony, they ended up at an apartment where he instructed her to remove her clothing.
“She told the court that he compelled her to go to the bathroom. She stated she refused but was told she needed to address her stubbornness,” according to her testimony where she alleged that Weinstein made physical contact with her and coerced her into touching him until he reached ejaculation.
Sokola remembered feeling “foolish and embarrassed” as the 73-year-old Weinstein, who was sitting in a wheelchair, either gazed at the jury or covered his face with his hands.
When she informed Weinstein of her desire to depart, he became agitated and stated, “If you wished to advance your career in Hollywood, you needed to hear me out,” Sokola, who currently works as a psychotherapist, recounted.
Sokola admitted that after a year she started shedding pounds and experienced issues such as anorexia and bulimia.
When asked by prosecutor Shannon Lucey why she never came forward about the incident, she responded, “I believed it was my fault.”
She mentioned, ‘I was content as a teenager prior to that incident. I had limits, yet everything unfolded too quickly without my consent.’
Sokola mentioned that she encountered Weinstein once more during a lunch in 2006, stating that he had enticed her to a Manhattan hotel room with the pretense of presenting her with a screenplay.
She stated that Weinstein shoved her onto a bed and made her engage in sexual activity against her will.
He stated during his ongoing testimony scheduled to resume on Friday, ‘I informed him to cease,’ but adds that he did not comply.
Weinstein, the producer of box-office hits “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love,” has never acknowledged wrongdoing.
He is serving a 16-year prison sentence after being convicted in California of raping and assaulting a European actress more than a decade ago.
af/mlm/sla/jbr/acb