First accuser gives evidence in Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial

The first of three accusers expected to give evidence at Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial has entered the witness box, reprising her testimony from his first trial five years ago.

Miriam Haley, a former TV and film production assistant, alleges that the former movie mogul forcibly performed oral sex on her at his New York City apartment in 2006.

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, who inherited the case from his predecessor, watched from the courtroom gallery as Ms Haley gave evidence. Her lawyer, Gloria Allred, sat behind Bragg.

She began by speaking about her hard upbringing in Finland and Sweden, her interest in the performing arts and her entry into the movie business as an assistant to the late Rocky Horror Picture Show producer Michael White.

Two of Ms Haley’s friends, who said she told them about the alleged assault, gave evidence last week.

She initially expressed reluctance to give evidence again after a New York appeals court last year overturned Weinstein’s landmark conviction and ordered a new trial.

The state’s Court of Appeals threw out his convictions and 23-year prison sentence and ordered a new trial after finding that the original one was tainted by “egregious” judicial rulings and prejudicial evidence.

Ms Haley, 48, did not look at Weinstein as she entered the courtroom through a side door and walked swiftly to the witness box, but was compelled to when a prosecutor asked her to point him out in court.

The ex-studio boss, sitting between his lawyers, looked at her as she passed by and again as she identified him from the stand.

In a sign of how hard-fought her evidence is likely to be, she had barely started answering a prosecutor’s questions when Weinstein’s lawyers objected to queries about physical abuse she says she suffered as a child.

She was allowed to answer, and her voice caught briefly afterwards before she composed herself.

Weinstein’s lawyers objected to similar questions at his first trial but were mostly overruled without much discussion. This time around, with a different judge, they are redoubling their efforts to peel away outer layers of evidence which they say are irrelevant or likely to confuse jurors.

Weinstein, 73, faces charges involving two women from his original trial in 2020: one count of criminal sex act in connection with Ms Haley’s allegations and one count of third-degree rape for allegedly assaulting then-aspiring actor Jessica Mann in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013.

He is also being tried for the first time on an allegation from Kaja Sokola, a former model who was not a part of the first case. Weinstein is charged with one count of criminal sex act for allegedly forcing oral sex on Ms Sokola at a Manhattan hotel in 2006.

Ms Mann and Ms Sokola are also expected to give evidence.

Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and denies raping or sexually assaulting anyone.

Ms Haley told the 2020 trial that Weinstein pushed her on to a bed at his Manhattan apartment in June 2006 and forced oral sex on her, undeterred by her kicks and pleas of, “No, please don’t do this, I don’t want it”.

Two of her friends told the court last Thursday that she told them about the alleged July 2006 sexual assault around that time.

Elizabeth Entin, her former roommate who also gave evidence at the first trial, said a shaken Ms Haley told her that month that Weinstein had forcibly performed oral sex on her. Ms Entin said she suggested Ms Haley call a lawyer, but her friend seemed disinclined.

Another friend, Christine Pressman, said she advised a “distraught” Ms Haley not to go to the police when she made a similar disclosure in August or September 2006.

Ms Haley, who has also gone by the name Mimi Haleyi, acknowledged in her earlier evidence that she kept in touch with Weinstein, exchanged warm messages with him, and accepted an invitation to his hotel room two weeks after the alleged assault, where he pulled her into bed for sex.

Later the witness said she went to speak to Weinstein about potential jobs in the film and TV business, but he “quickly started talking about other things”.

He commented on her legs and suggested they give each other massages, Ms Haley said.

She said she refused his advances and burst into tears as she left the room.

“I felt taken aback. I felt humiliated,” she testified as a prosecutor questioned her about events that preceded the alleged assault. “It was just kind of like a sinking feeling that he wasn’t taking me seriously at all.”

Asked by Manhattan prosecutor Nicole Blumberg if she had “any interest whatsoever” in Weinstein “romantically or sexually” during the hotel room encounter or at any time, Ms Haley replied: “No, I did not. I was there to try and find work.”

Ms Haley told the jury that when she went to meet Weinstein on the sidelines of the 2006 Cannes film festival, all she wanted was work.

Ms Haley said she left the Cannes meeting crying and feeling humiliated. But she accepted when Weinstein arranged a basic assistant job for her on his company’s reality show Project Runway in June 2006.

After the roughly three-week job ended and Ms Haley thanked him by email, Weinstein communicated that he had heard good things about her work and invited her to meet at a Manhattan hotel lobby, she said as prosecutors displayed her 2006 calendar with the meeting noted.

She and Weinstein talked business, and he was “very respectful and quite charming” and talked about other potential job opportunities, she recalled.

“Were you flirty or suggesting anything sexual between you and the defendant at that meeting?” the prosecutor asked.

“Absolutely not,” Ms Haley replied.

She said another meeting in Weinstein’s office also went pleasantly and professionally, and so did a ride with him, his assistant and his driver back to her apartment — and then the Hollywood honcho suddenly suggested she accompany him to Paris fashion shows.

Ms Haley said she had no interest in going but gave a vague response, “trying to be polite”. They said goodbye.

Yet Weinstein repeatedly asked her to come to Paris with him for fashion shows, even showing up uninvited and barging into her apartment to try to persuade her, she said.

Ms Haley told jurors she again declined, but Weinstein was “insistent and overwhelming”, so she told him: “I heard about your reputation with women.”

Weinstein took a step back, seeming offended, and quizzed her about what she meant, she recalled. She told jurors she actually had not heard much about Weinstein at that point but was just trying to avoid the Paris trip.

Eventually, Weinstein left the apartment and backed off, she said.

Under New York law applicable at the time, Weinstein has not been charged with rape in connection with Ms Haley’s allegations.

Ms Haley is expected to continue giving evidence on Wednesday.