WARNING: This text might have an effect on those that have skilled sexual violence or know somebody affected by it.
A former TV manufacturing assistant advised a jury Wednesday that Harvey Weinstein held her down on a mattress and compelled oral intercourse on her after she advised him: “No, no — it isn’t going to occur.”
Dabbing her eyes, Miriam Haley recalled what ran via her thoughts throughout the alleged July 2006 assault: “The unthinkable was taking place, I simply thought any unthinkable factor might occur. I simply did not know the place it ended.”
Weinstein, sitting between his attorneys, shook his head as she spoke.
Haley, who has additionally passed by the identify Mimi Haleyi, is the primary of the ex-Hollywood honcho’s accusers to testify at his rape retrial. It is taking place as a result of New York’s highest courtroom overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction.
The 73-year-old former studio boss has pleaded not responsible and denies sexually assaulting anybody.
Haley testified on the authentic trial and was candid final yr about her combined emotions about repeating the expertise.
Weinstein’s attorneys have not but had their probability to query her and probably attempt to poke holes in her account. However the defence has sought vigorously — if typically unsuccessfully — to rein within the scope of Haley’s testimony by objecting to prosecutors’ questions, comparable to a number of queries about whether or not she had any sexual curiosity in Weinstein. Haley stated she didn’t.
The defence has argued that each one of Weinstein’s accusers consented to sexual encounters with him in hopes of getting work in present enterprise.
Weinstein going through new and outdated prices
Haley started her testimony Tuesday by describing how she obtained to know Weinstein, briefly labored as a manufacturing assistant on his firm’s actuality present Undertaking Runway in June 2006 and had a sequence of interactions with him that had been typically inappropriate and suggestive, however different occasions skilled and well mannered.
Two months earlier than she says he assaulted her at his Manhattan condo, Haley stated she went to Weinstein’s resort room to discuss potential jobs within the film and TV enterprise.
He “rapidly began speaking about different issues,” she advised jurors on Tuesday.
He commented on her legs and instructed they provide one another massages, Haley stated. She refused his advances and says she burst into tears as quickly as she left.
“I felt stunned. I felt humiliated,” she testified. “It was simply type of like a sinking feeling that he wasn’t taking me severely in any respect.”
All through their encounters, Haley stated, she was solely in search of skilled alternative — not intercourse or romance — with the then-powerful producer of such Oscar winners as Shakespeare in Love and Gangs of New York.
Weinstein’s retrial consists of prices based mostly on allegations from Haley and one other accuser from the unique trial, Jessica Mann, who was as soon as an aspiring actor. She alleges that Weinstein raped her in 2013.
He is additionally being tried, for the primary time, on an allegation of forcing oral intercourse on former mannequin Kaja Sokola in 2006. Her declare wasn’t a part of the primary trial.
Mann and Sokola are also anticipated to testify in some unspecified time in the future.
The Related Press usually doesn’t identify individuals who allege they’ve been sexually assaulted except they provide permission for his or her names for use. Haley, Mann and Sokola have executed so.
Should you’re in instant hazard or concern on your security or that of others round you, please name 911. For assist in your space, you may search for disaster strains and native companies through the Ending Violence Association of Canada database.
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