NEW YORK (AP) — A woman who says Harvey Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her testified Tuesday at his #MeToo retrial that she never had any romantic or sexual interest in the one-time Hollywood heavyweight.
Miriam Haley, the first of three accusers expected to testify, told jurors about an awkward meeting with Weinstein at the Cannes Film Festival in France two months before she says he assaulted her at his Manhattan apartment in July 2006.
The witness, reprising her testimony from his first trial in 2020, said she went to Weinstein’s hotel room to speak about potential jobs in the movie and TV business, but he “quickly started talking about other things.”
He commented on her legs and suggested they give each other massages, Haley said.
Now 47, she said she refused his advances and burst into tears as she left.
“I felt taken aback. I felt humiliated," she testified. “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," Haley replied: “No, I did not. I was there to try and find work.”
Haley’s testimony is expected to continue on Wednesday. She has yet to be asked about the alleged assault.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who inherited the case from his predecessor, watched from the courtroom gallery as Haley took the stand. Her lawyer, Gloria Allred, sat behind Bragg.
Haley began by speaking about her abusive childhood in Finland and Sweden, her interest in the performing arts and entering the movie business as an assistant to late “Rocky Horror Picture Show” producer Michael White.
Haley, a former TV and movie production assistant, is on the witness stand at the start of the second week of testimony in Weinstein’s retrial. Two of her friends, who said she told them about the alleged assault, testified last week.
Haley initially expressed reluctance to testify 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 Weinstein’s 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 testimony.
Haley did not look at Weinstein as she entered the courtroom through a side door and walked swiftly to the witness stand, 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 Haley’s testimony is likely to be, she had barely started answering a prosecutor’s questions when Weinstein’s attorneys objected to queries about physical abuse she says she suffered as a child. She was allowed to answer, and her voice caught briefly afterward before she composed herself.
Weinstein’s lawyers objected to similar questions at his first trial and were mostly overruled without much discussion. This time, with a different judge, they're redoubling their efforts to excise testimony they say is 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 for 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’s also being tried for the first time on an allegation from Kaja Sokola, a former model who wasn’t a part of the first case. Weinstein is charged with one count of criminal sex act for allegedly forcing oral sex on Sokola at a Manhattan hotel in 2006.
Mann and Sokola are also expected to testify.
Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and denies that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone.
Haley testified at the 2020 trial that Weinstein pushed her onto a bed at his Manhattan apartment and forced oral sex on her, undeterred by her kicks and pleas of, “No, please don’t do this, I don’t want it.”
Haley’s two friends testified last Thursday that she had told them about the alleged July 2006 sexual assault around that time. Former roommate Elizabeth Entin said she suggested Haley call a lawyer, but her friend seemed disinclined. Another friend, Christine Pressman, said she advised a “distraught” Haley not to go to the police.
Haley, who has also gone by the name Mimi Haleyi, acknowledged in her earlier testimony that she kept in touch with Weinstein and accepted an invitation to his hotel room two weeks after the alleged assault, where he pulled her into bed for sex.
Jennifer Peltz And Michael R. Sisak, The Associated Press
