Kaja Sokola, a former Poland track model that accused the Harvey Weinstein Magnat for sexual assault in a trial, described in tears the alleged encounter as the most “horrible thing I have ever experienced” during the testimony of Weinstein’s sexual abuse retrilation on Thursday.
Sokola, 39, who said that the assault took place in 2006 at the age of 16, told jurors that the film Onetime Honcho had put his hand in his underwear and made him touch his genitals in a Manhattan apartment in 2002.
Sokola said that she had seen Weinstein’s eyes – “black and scary” – staring at her in a bathroom mirror as happened.
Subsequently, she said, he told her to be silent about what had happened, praising that he had made the career of A-Listers like Gwyneth Paltrow and Penélope Cruz and that he could help his Hollywood dreams come true.
“I had never been in a situation like this,” said Sokola. “I felt stupid and ashamed and I like my fault to put myself in this position.”
Sokola was part of a group of women who filed an in progress against Weinstein in 2019. She then brought her own separate trial.
Sokola said she had met Weinstein a month after leaving Warsaw, Poland, for New York to continue theater and modeling. She said in her trial that she had been presented to her during an event involving her modeling agency, and he promised to help him become an actor.
The trial allegedly allegedly met after meeting him, Weinstein took Sokola for what was supposed to be a business lunch, but he rather took him to his apartment in Manhattan and asked for sex. When Sokola tried to resist, Weinstein told him that he had “made” the career of other actors and warned that she would never work as an actress unless she has nodded, “said the complaint.
Sokola faced immense emotional pain and suffering and abandoned his actor dreams after the assault, said the costume.
“He told me to remove my clothes and I didn’t want to do this. I was panicking,” said Sokola. “And then he said that if I wanted to be an actress, that’s what the actors do in the movies, so I should get used to it. If a director says you have your clothes, you have to remove your clothes. I was afraid of him.”
Weinstein’s first trial led to a historic conviction in 2020 which was canceled last year after the court concluded that the trial judge had poorly authorized testimonies on the basis of allegations which were not part of the case. The Oscar -winning producer, 73, denied all the allegations, and his lawyers argued that the sexual meetings with the accusers were all “transactional” and “consensual”.
Sokola’s allegations were not included in Weinstein’s first trial. He was charged in September for accusations related to his statements.
His testimony followed accuser Miriam Haley in tears in tears and leaving the courtroom on Friday. The former production assistant for “Project Runway” was about 30 minutes of testimony when Weinstein’s lawyer Jennifer Bonjean began to grill it on what she was carrying when she alleged that Weinstein has forcibly made oral sex in her Soho apartment in 2006.
At one point in the exchange, Haley cursed, calling Weinstein an “F — ING A-HOLE”. Haley then asked for a break.
Weinstein, who received a diagnosis of bone marrow cancer and was faced with other health problems, was already sentenced in 2022 for another rape in Los Angeles and sentenced to 16 years. His lawyers call on this conviction.
Corky Siemaszko contributed.
