By JENNIFER PELTZ and MICHAEL R. SISAK
NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein ’s legal professionals acquired their flip Thursday to query a girl who alleges the one-time Hollywood heavyweight held her down and compelled oral intercourse on her almost 20 years in the past.
Miriam Haley, testifying for a 3rd day at Weinstein’s rape retrial, was grilled about particulars of her recollections — comparable to precisely how she as soon as propped open an house constructing door — and the larger image of her story.
Protection lawyer Jennifer Bonjean underscored that Haley, who was then searching for leisure manufacturing work, stayed in contact with Weinstein regardless of feeling humiliated when he complimented her legs and requested for a therapeutic massage at a gathering just a few months earlier than the alleged 2006 assault.
“You understood these were sexual overtures?” Bonjean requested.
Haley mentioned she did.
“You rebuffed them, and he still gave you his phone number, right?”
“Yes,” mentioned Haley, who acquired a brief gig on the Weinstein-produced “Project Runway” shortly after that assembly, which occurred in his firm’s lodge suite throughout the 2006 Cannes Movie Pageant.
Haley has repeatedly testified that she was pursuing solely job alternatives, nothing else, from Weinstein.
Bonjean additionally sparred with the witness over her choice to get a lawyer and maintain a press convention airing her allegations because the #MeToo motion exploded in October 2017, fueled by different girls’s claims that the Oscar-winning producer had sexually assaulted or harassed them.
Witness Mimi Haley arrives to testify within the case in opposition to former movie producer Harvey Weinstein at state courtroom in Manhattan, Thursday, Might 1, 2025 in New York. (Michael M. Santiago/Pool Photograph by way of AP)
Miriam Haley, an accuser testifying at Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial, walks to the courtroom, Thursday, Might 1, 2025 in New York. (AP Photograph/Adam Grey)
Harvey Weinstein seems in state courtroom in Manhattan for his trial on Thursday, Might 1, 2025 in New York. (Michael M. Santiago/Pool Photograph by way of AP)
Harvey Weinstein seems in state courtroom in Manhattan, Thursday, Might 1, 2025 in New York. (AP Photograph/Adam Grey, Pool)
Harvey Weinstein seems in state courtroom in Manhattan, Thursday, Might 1, 2025 in New York. (AP Photograph/Adam Grey, Pool)
Miriam Haley, an accuser testifying at Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial, walks to the courtroom, Thursday, Might 1, 2025 in New York. (AP Photograph/Adam Grey)
Miriam Haley, an accuser testifying at Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial, walks to the courtroom, Thursday, Might 1, 2025 in New York. (AP Photograph/Adam Grey)
Harvey Weinstein seems in state courtroom in Manhattan, Thursday, Might 1, 2025 in New York. (AP Photograph/Adam Grey, Pool)
Present Caption
1 of 8
Witness Mimi Haley arrives to testify within the case in opposition to former movie producer Harvey Weinstein at state courtroom in Manhattan, Thursday, Might 1, 2025 in New York. (Michael M. Santiago/Pool Photograph by way of AP)
Increase
Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not responsible and denies sexually assaulting anybody. His legal professionals argue that every one of his accusers consented to sexual encounters in hopes of getting work in present enterprise.
Haley, who has additionally passed by the identify Mimi Haleyi, is the primary of three accusers anticipated to testify on the retrial. She is reprising and including some new particulars to testimony that led to Weinstein’s since-overturned 2020 conviction.
She testified Wednesday that Weinstein assaulted her after inviting her to his house for what she anticipated to be a pleasant, skilled assembly. She mentioned he pushed her onto a mattress, ignoring her pleas of: “No, no — it’s not going to happen.”
She and two pals testified that she informed them quickly after that Weinstein had sexually assaulted her.
Haley testified that she took a prearranged flight to Los Angeles on Weinstein’s dime the following day, and some weeks later agreed to fulfill him at a Manhattan lodge. She mentioned she had anticipated to speak within the foyer, however was as a substitute directed to his room, the place she says she had undesirable, however not pressured, intercourse with him.
Bonjean identified Thursday that when Haley went public in 2017, she didn’t point out her subsequent sexual encounter with Weinstein, nor their continued contact.
“You told the press only part of the story, correct?” Bonjean requested.
“I told the part that was relevant to what I was trying to share,” Haley mentioned.
She denied Bonjean’s suggestion that she spoke out in hopes of suing Weinstein, although she later sued and acquired a roughly $475,000 settlement.
Specializing in the Cannes assembly, Bonjean pressed Haley on what to make of the truth that she had secured a gathering with a prime producer whereas she had restricted expertise herself.
“So, as somebody in my position, I should have turned it down, is what you’re saying?” Haley shot again.
“I’m not saying you should have done anything,” Bonjean replied.
She’s going to step away from Weinstein’s protection staff to attend to a different trial after she finishes questioning Haley, who’s due again on the stand Friday.
Weinstein’s retrial contains costs associated to Haley and one other accuser from the unique trial, Jessica Mann, who alleges Weinstein raped her in 2013. He’s additionally being tried, for the primary time, for allegedly forcing oral intercourse on former mannequin Kaja Sokola in 2006.
Mann and Sokola are also anticipated to testify.
The Related Press typically doesn’t identify individuals who allege they’ve been sexually assaulted until they provide permission for his or her names for use. Haley, Mann and Sokola have completed so.
Initially Printed: Might 1, 2025 at 6:00 PM EDT
