Days into Harvey Weinstein’s first sexual assault trial in 2020, prosecutors privately spoke for the primary time with a former mannequin who alleged that he had pressured oral intercourse on her.
However that jury was by no means informed about Kaja Sokola’s declare.
Prosecutors have mentioned they nonetheless had been investigating the allegation when Weinstein, a onetime film tycoon-turned- #MeToo pariah, was convicted in February 2020 of prices based mostly on different girls’s accusations.
On Wednesday, Sokola started to inform a brand new jury her story.
Sokola didn’t have a look at Weinstein as she walked previous him and onto the witness stand in a Manhattan courtroom the place he’s on trial once more.
An appeals court docket overturned his 2020 rape and sexual assault conviction, sending these prices again for retrial, and prosecutors subsequently added one other sexual assault cost based mostly on Sokola’s allegations.
As she started testifying about her life earlier than the alleged 2006 assault, Weinstein seemed towards her, together with his proper hand throughout his mouth.
Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not responsible to all the costs.
His attorneys contend that his accusers consented to sexual encounters with him in hopes of getting film and TV alternatives, and the protection has emphasised that the ladies stayed in touch with him for some time after the alleged assaults.
The ladies, in the meantime, say the Oscar-winning producer used the prospect of present enterprise work to prey on them.
The Polish-born Sokola, 39, is a psychotherapist and writer and mentioned she lately launched a movie manufacturing firm.
She sued Weinstein after trade whispers about his conduct towards girls grew to become a refrain of public accusations in 2017, fueling the #MeToo motion towards sexual misconduct.
Prosecutors have mentioned Sokola ultimately obtained $3.5 million in compensation.
Sokola testified that she was by no means keen on modeling — however quite in appearing and writing — however her mom and sister determined she ought to enter a Polish modeling contest at age 14.
She gained a contract with a modeling company and was quickly juggling center college with photograph shoots.
The subsequent two years “were a very fast growing-up lesson,” she mentioned.
By 2002, she was 16 and in New York to make the modeling rounds, with none of family readily available.
Sokola, who’s anticipated to proceed testifying Thursday, hasn’t been requested but about Weinstein.
Prosecutors have mentioned she was launched to him whereas on that 2002 modeling journey to New York.
In her lawsuits, Sokola mentioned that shortly after she met Weinstein, he invited her to lunch to debate her profession however then sexually assaulted her.
The lawsuits alleged he sexually harassed and emotionally abused her for years afterward.
The prison cost stems from one occasion when Sokola maintains that Weinstein forcibly carried out oral intercourse on her in a Manhattan resort in Could 2006.
Prosecutors have mentioned it occurred after Weinstein organized for Sokola to be an additional within the movie “The Nanny Diaries” and met her visiting older sister, whom she was making an attempt to impress.
“She was proud of knowing him,” her sister, heart specialist Dr. Ewa Sokola, informed jurors Wednesday.
She mentioned the three of them met in a resort foyer, chatted about Italian films and the heavyset Weinstein’s coronary heart well being, after which he and the mannequin left the desk collectively.
Kaja Sokola was tense when she returned a few half-hour later — “like somebody waiting for the result of an exam” or the Oscars — however didn’t say something concerning the alleged sexual assault, Dr. Sokola informed jurors.
She mentioned she was shocked to study concerning the declare over a decade later, when she examine it in {a magazine} article.
Weinstein’s attorneys will get an opportunity to query Kaja Sokola within the coming days.
In a gap assertion final month, protection lawyer Arthur Aidala questioned why she waited years to return ahead.
Prosecutors have argued that accusers had been reluctant to talk up due to Weinstein’s wealth and affect.
Prosecutors have mentioned they started investigating Sokola’s claims after her attorneys known as on the eve of Weinstein’s first trial.
However prosecutors set the inquiry apart after he was convicted and the coronavirus pandemic loomed.
They revived the Sokola investigation after New York’s highest court docket reversed Weinstein’s conviction.
Weinstein’s attorneys fought unsuccessfully to maintain Sokola’s allegation out of the retrial.
They accused prosecutors of “smuggling an additional charge into the case” to attempt to bolster different accusers’ credibility.
One of many others, Miriam Haley, testified final week that Weinstein pressured oral intercourse on her in 2006.
The third accuser within the case, Jessica Mann, is anticipated to testify later.
The Related Press typically doesn’t identify sexual assault accusers with out their permission, which Haley, Mann and Sokola have given.
