Harvey Weinstein's rape retrial opens with new allegations of sexual assault from former model
Ex-studio boss facing previous criminal sex act charges as well as new charge from 3rd woman
WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
Harvey Weinstein's retrial opened in New York City on Wednesday, giving a new jury a fresh look at rape and sexual assault allegations — plus a newly added claim from a former model.
For the first time, prosecutors publicly identified Kaja Sokola and detailed her account of what unfolded between her and the movie producer in the early 2000s. Weinstein is criminally charged with forcing oral sex on her in 2006, but she also accused him in a civil lawsuit of groping her against her will four years earlier, when she was 16.
Like the two other accusers in the case, Sokola alleges a complex series of encounters and reactions — being sexually assaulted, yet staying in touch with Weinstein, being wary of him, but wanting to remain on good terms with the Hollywood power broker who dangled the possibility of an acting career.
"Why did the defendant hold this level of power and control in the eyes of these three women? It's because Harvey Weinstein defined the field," prosecutor Shannon Lucey told jurors in an opening statement. "He knew how tempting promises of success were. He produced, he choreographed, he therefore directed, their ultimate silence for years."
Weinstein used "dream opportunities as weapons" to prey on the three accusers in the case, Lucey said.
"The defendant wanted their bodies, and the more they resisted, the more forceful he got."
'Casting couch is not a crime scene,' defence says
The retrial is happening because New York's top court last year threw out Weinstein's 2020 conviction, which was a watershed moment for the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct. The high court found that the previous trial judge allowed prejudicial testimony about allegations that were separate from the charges.
Weinstein has again pleaded not guilty, and defence lawyer Arthur Aidala countered the prosecution by portraying the accusers as willing partners in a showbiz quid pro quo.
"The casting couch is not a crime scene," Aidala told the majority-female jury. He compared the prosecution's allegations to the preview of a movie that "falls flat on its face."
The 73-year-old Weinstein, seated in the wheelchair he now uses because of health problems, didn't look at Lucey or the jury during her presentation before Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and others in a packed courtroom audience. But Weinstein watched intently as Aidala outlined his defence.
Weinstein's retrial is playing out at a different cultural moment than the first. The #MeToo movement, which exploded in 2017 with allegations against Weinstein, has also evolved.
The jury counts seven women and five men — unlike the seven-man, five-woman panel that convicted him in 2020 — and there's a different judge.
At the start of Weinstein's first trial, chants of "rapist" could be heard from protesters outside. This time, there was none of that.
Nevertheless, Sokola's lawyer, Lindsay Goldbrum, has called Weinstein's retrial a "signal to other survivors that the system is catching up — and that it's worth speaking out even when the odds seem insurmountable."
Weinstein faces old and new criminal sex act charges
In addition to facing a new criminal sex act charge, Weinstein is being retried on a criminal sex act charge for allegedly forcibly performing oral sex on Miriam Haley, a movie and TV production assistant at the time, in 2006, and a third-degree rape charge for allegedly assaulting Jessica Mann, a then-aspiring actor, in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013.
Prosecutors said Sokola came forward days before his first trial but wasn't part of that case. They said they revisited her allegations when his conviction was thrown out.
The Associated Press does not generally identify people alleging sexual assault unless they consent to be named, as Haley, Mann and Sokola have done.
More than 100 women, including famous actresses, have accused Weinstein of misconduct.
While these jurors won't hear about the allegations unrelated to the criminal charges that got the first conviction thrown out, they are expected to hear from Sokola.
Court hears allegations made by Sokola
The Polish-born Sokola met Weinstein in 2002 after travelling alone to New York for a modelling trip at age 16, according to prosecutors.
She alleges he invited her to lunch to discuss potential acting jobs but detoured to his apartment and demanded she take off her shirt if she wanted to make it in the movie business. Then, Sokola alleges, Weinstein fondled her while making her touch his genitals.
Over the next few years, Sokola stayed in contact with Weinstein, even after telling him off for allegedly groping her in a car around 2004, Lucey told jurors. She said Weinstein arranged for Sokola to be an extra and to talk to the stars of the 2007 rom-com The Nanny Diaries, and she invited him to lunch with her visiting sister, hoping to impress her.
After the lunch, Lucey said he lured Sokola to his Manhattan hotel room by saying he had scripts for her to see, ordered her to undress, held her down on a bed and performed oral sex on her while she tearfully implored him not to do so.
In the weeks after, Sokola was photographed with Weinstein and a third person at an event, and his company wrote her a recommendation letter for acting school, the prosecutor said. Lucey told jurors that power imbalances often "cause victims to behave in ways that laypersons possibly might not expect."
After other allegations emerged against Weinstein in 2017, Sokola sued. Prosecutors said she received $3.5 million US in compensation.
Aidala said Sokola and the other accusers were "trying to take advantage of Mr. Weinstein when he was at the top," then benefited from making allegations "when he was headed toward the bottom."
Outside court, Sokola's attorney decried Weinstein's defence as full of "victim blaming" and "rape myths."
Weinstein's acquittals on the two most serious charges at his 2020 trial — predatory sexual assault and first-degree rape — still stand, however he was also convicted of sex crimes in California and was sentenced to a 16-year prison term. He is in the process of appealing that conviction.
If you're in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911. For support in your area, you can look for crisis lines and local services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database.
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With files from Reuters