Warning: This article can affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone who is affected.
A former model testified on Thursday that Harvey Weinstein sexually attacked her at the age of 16 and described it as the “most terrible thing I have ever experienced”.
Kaja Sokola, at that time emerging actor, told the jury of Weinstein’s retrial that the former film Honcho put his hand in her underwear and touched her in an apartment in Manhattan in 2002 in an apartment in Manhattan.
Sokola said she had Weinstein’s eyes – “black and scary” – staring at a bathroom mirror when it happened.
After that, she told her, she should calmly remain calm and announced that he had made the career of A-listeners like Gwyneth Paltrow and Penelope Cruz and that he could help her to come true.
“I’ve never been to such a situation,” said Sokola when the jurors with the grades. “I felt stupid and ashamed and it is my fault that I got into this position.”
Weinstein is charged with the alleged attack, which Sokola described in a lawsuit for the first time a few years ago, due to crime. The timing made it outside the limitation period for criminal charges.
Sokola attested because Weinstein is forced to go to the forced ororal sex in Manhattan because of her 20th birthday in a hotel in Manhattan in a hotel in Manhattan. Prosecutors say that it has happened after Weinstein made sure that Sokola is an extra in the film “The Nanny Diaries”.
Sokola reported the authorities for a few days in Weinstein’s first trial in 2020, but was not part of this case. The public prosecutor added to the resumption and joined two women who testified in the first case after his conviction had been lifted last year.
The 73 -year -old Weinstein looked down and away from Sokola when she told the earlier claim and how a sign pressed his left thumb and index finger against his face.
Sokola said that in 2002 she made the then studio boss in a restaurant in Manhattan three or four days before the alleged attack. During the short conversation, she said, Weinstein asked her if she wanted to be an actress.
A few days later, he invited her to lunch – supposedly about acting – but brought her to an apartment where she led her to a bedroom and then a bathroom, referred her to take her top and attack her.
“He told me I should undress and I didn’t want to. I was panicked,” said Sokola. “And then he said that if I want to be an actress, that’s what actors do in films, so I should get used to it. If a director says that they have to undress, they have to turn off. I’m afraid. I’m afraid of him.”
Sokola avoided looking at Weinstein when she went to the witness stand – and showed a second day after her upbringing in Poland on Wednesday, how she entered the modeling and her professional career as a psychotherapist and author who recently introduced a film production company. She briefly peeked to Weinstein when she was asked to refer him to court on Thursday.
Weinstein has not guilty and denies sexual attacks.
His lawyers claim that his prosecutors would have agreed to the sexual encounters with him in the hope of getting film and TV opportunities, and the defense has emphasized that the women stayed in touch with him for a while after the alleged attacks. In the meantime, the women say that the then producer had used the prospect of show business work to hunt them.
Sokola not part of the trial 2020
Sokola sued Weinstein after industry was whispered into a choir of public allegations in 2017 about its behavior towards women and heated the #metoo movement against sexual misconduct. The public prosecutor said that Sokola had finally received compensation of 3.5 million US dollars.
The prosecutors have announced that they are examining Sokola’s claims in 2020, but the examination aside after Weinstein was condemned. You revived the investigation after New York’s Higher Court reversed his conviction.
Weinstein’s lawyers unsuccessfully struggled to keep Sokola away from the resumption and accused the prosecutors to “smuggle an additional indictment in the case” in order to try to strengthen the credibility of other accusers.
One of the other, Miriam Haley, said last week that Weinstein forced oral sex for her in 2006. The third indictment in the case, Jessica Mann, is expected to testify later.
The Associated Press generally does not call any accusations for sexual attacks without its permission that Haley, Mann and Sokola have given.
If you fear in direct danger or fear for your security or that of others around you, please call 911. You can search for support in your region via the crisis lines and local services Ending Violence Association of Canada database.
