NEW YORK (AP) — A former model tearfully testified Thursday that Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her when she was 16 years old, calling it the most "horrifying thing I ever experienced" to that point.
Four years later, she said, Weinstein assaulted her again.
Kaja (KEYE'-ah) Sokola detailed the allegations in front of a jury for the first time as she testified at Weinstein's #MeToo retrial. She is the second of three accusers to testify, and the only one who wasn't part of the onetime Hollywood honcho's first trial in 2020.
Weinstein faces a criminal sex act charge based on the later allegation — forcibly performing oral sex on Sokola at a Manhattan hotel in 2006, just before her 20th birthday. The earlier alleged assault was beyond legal time limits for a potential criminal charge.
Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and denies sexually assaulting anyone.
His lawyers are due to start questioning Sokola on Friday. They have said that all of the former movie studio boss' accusers consented to sexual encounters in hopes of advancing their careers.
The Polish-born Sokola began modeling at 14 and was soon flying around the world for photo shoots and fashion shows. But she told jurors she was always more interested in acting, so she was hopeful when she was introduced to Weinstein at a New York nightclub in 2002 and he invited her to lunch to talk about acting.
Instead, he steered her to his Manhattan apartment and told her to take her clothes off, saying that actors had to be comfortable disrobing in films, she testified.
Sokola took off her blouse and followed him into a bathroom because, she said, “I was 16 years old, and I was alone with a man for the first time, and I didn’t know what else to do.” She said that she told Weinstein she objected to what was happening, but that he put his hand inside her underwear and made her touch his genitals.
Sokola said she saw Weinstein’s eyes — “black and scary” — staring at her in a bathroom mirror as it happened. Afterward, she said, he told her to keep quiet, saying he'd made Hollywood careers and could help her acting dreams come true.
“I felt stupid and ashamed and like it’s my fault for putting myself in this position,” Sokola testified through sobs, bringing a tissue to her face, as riveted jurors scribbled notes.
Weinstein, 73, looked down and away as she spoke, pressing his left thumb and index finger against his face like a shield.
Sokola, now 39, became emotional again as questioning turned to the 2006 allegation. She said she had stayed in touch with Weinstein because of her acting dreams.
“I never wanted anything else from Harvey Weinstein other than to honestly say if I have a chance to be an actress or no,” said Sokola, who eventually became a psychotherapist. She vowed that she had “absolutely not” ever had any romantic or sexual interest in him.
In 2006, Weinstein arranged for her to be an extra for a day in the film “The Nanny Diaries,” and he separately agreed to meet Sokola and her visiting elder sister.
After the three chatted, Sokola said, Weinstein told her he had a script to show her in his hotel room, and she went up with him.
There, she said, Weinstein pushed her onto a bed and stripped off her boots, her stockings, her underwear, and something indelible.
“My soul was removed from me,” Sokola testified.
She said he held her down while ignoring her pleas of “please don’t, please stop, I don’t want this.” Sokola said she tried to push him away but was no match against Weinstein's physical heft.
She rejoined her sister but said nothing about being assaulted, both siblings testified. Sokola said she didn’t want to tell her sister that Weinstein had treated her with such disrespect.
Sokola went to authorities a few days into Weinstein's first trial. Prosecutors halted their investigation after Weinstein was convicted, but revived it when New York's highest court reversed the verdict last year.
She first detailed the 2002 allegation in a lawsuit a few years ago, after a chorus of public accusations against Weinstein emerged in 2017 and fueled the #MeToo movement.
Sokola eventually received $3.5 million in compensation.
Another accuser, Miriam Haley, testified last week that Weinstein forced oral sex on her in 2006. The third accuser in the case, Jessica Mann, is expected to testify later. She alleges Weinstein raped her in 2013.
The Associated Press generally does not name sexual assault accusers without their permission, which Haley, Mann and Sokola have given.
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