NEW YORK (AP) — A former model tearfully testified Thursday that Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her when she was 16 years old, calling it the most “horrifying thing I ever experienced” to that point.
Four years later, she said, Weinstein assaulted her again.
Kaja (KEYE’-ah) Sokola detailed the allegations in front of a jury for the first time as she testified at Weinstein’s #MeToo retrial. She is the second of three accusers to testify, and the only one who wasn't part of the onetime Hollywood honcho’s first trial in 2020.
Weinstein is charged with the later allegation — forcibly performing oral sex on Sokola at a Manhattan hotel in 2006, just before her 20th birthday — but not the earlier one due to the statute of limitations.
Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and denies sexually assaulting anyone.
Sokola, an aspiring actor at the time, told jurors that Weinstein put his hand inside her underwear and made her touch his genitals at a Manhattan apartment in 2002.
Sokola said she saw Weinstein’s eyes — “black and scary” — staring at her in a bathroom mirror as it happened. Afterward, she said, he told her to keep quiet, touting that he'd made Hollywood careers and could help her acting dreams come true.
“I felt stupid and ashamed and like it’s my fault for putting myself in this position,” Sokola testified, as riveted jurors scribbled notes.
Weinstein, 73, looked down and away as she testified, pressing his left thumb and index finger against his face like a shield.
Sokola avoided looking at Weinstein as she walked to the witness stand. She was testifying for a second day after detailing on Wednesday her upbringing in Poland, entrée into modeling and career as a psychotherapist and author. She peered briefly at him when asked Thursday to point him out.
Sokola became emotional again as questioning turned to the 2006 allegation. She said she stayed in touch with Weinstein in part because she wanted to be an actor, and prosecutors say the encounter happened after he made her an extra in the film “The Nanny Diaries.”
Sokola’s voice slowed as she described leaving her sister in the hotel lobby and going with Weinstein to a room, where he claimed he had a script for her.
Sokola said Weinstein pushed her onto a bed, removed her boots, stockings and underwear and held her down while ignoring her pleas of “please don’t, please stop, I don’t want this.” Sokola said she tried to push him away, but was no match against Weinstein's physical heft.
“My soul was removed from me,” Sokola testified.
She rejoined her sister, but said nothing about being assaulted, both siblings testified.
Sokola said she stayed mum because, after introducing Weinstein to her sister as someone who could help her career, she didn’t want to reveal he’d treated her with such disrespect.
Sokola went to authorities a few days into Weinstein’s first trial. Prosecutors halted their investigation after Weinstein was convicted, but revived it when New York’s highest court reversed the verdict last year. She first detailed the 2002 allegation in a lawsuit a few years ago.
Sokola testified that she first met Weinstein, then 50, at a Manhattan restaurant, a few days before she says he first assaulted her.
A few days later, she said, he invited her to lunch — but instead took her to an apartment, where he assaulted her.
“He told me to take my clothes off and I didn’t want to do that. I was panicking,” Sokola testified. “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.”
Weinstein’s lawyers contend that his accusers consented to sexual encounters in hopes of advancing their careers, and the defense has emphasized that the women stayed in contact for a while after the alleged assaults. The women say he used the prospect of work to prey on them.
Sokola sued Weinstein after a chorus of public accusations against Weinstein emerged in 2017, fueling the #MeToo movement. Prosecutors have said Sokola eventually received $3.5 million in compensation.
Weinstein’s lawyers fought unsuccessfully to keep Sokola out of the retrial, accusing prosecutors of “smuggling an additional charge into the case” to try to bolster other accusers.
One of the others, Miriam Haley, testified last week that Weinstein forced oral sex on her in 2006. The third accuser in the case, Jessica Mann, is expected to testify later. She alleges Weinstein raped her in 2013.
The Associated Press generally does not name sexual assault accusers without their permission, which Haley, Mann and Sokola have given.
Michael R. Sisak And Jennifer Peltz, The Associated Press
