NEW YORK (AP) — When Harvey Weinstein' s landmark 2020 #MeToo conviction was overturned, accuser Miriam Haley was frank about her feelings about participating in a retrial: “I definitely don’t want to actually go through that again.”
But on Tuesday, Haley became the first of the former movie tycoon’s accusers to take the witness stand as prosecutors seek to convict him again. Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not guilty and denies sexually assaulting anyone.
As Haley started what are expected to be multiple days of testimony, she walked quickly to the witness stand without looking at Weinstein. The ex-studio boss, sitting between his lawyers, looked at her as she passed by and again when prosecutors asked her to identify him from the stand.
Haley told the jury that when she went to meet Weinstein on the sidelines of the 2006 Cannes film festival, all she wanted was work.
But Weinstein commented on her legs, asked for a massage and, when she balked, asked her to give him one, she recalled.
“Did you have any interest whatsoever in the defendant, Harvey Weinstein, romantically or sexually?” prosecutor Nicole Blumberg asked Haley, 48.
“No, I did not, and I was there to try and find work,” said Haley, who’d been an assistant to another producer.
Her testimony so far closely echoes what she told the prior jury, though she hasn't yet gotten to the July 2006 date when she has said Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her. She recounted earlier interactions with Weinstein that alternated between being personally off-putting and professionally encouraging for her.
Haley said she left the Cannes meeting crying and feeling humiliated. But she accepted when Weinstein arranged a basic assistant job for her on his company's reality show “Project Runway” in June 2006.
After the roughly three-week gig ended and Haley thanked him by email, Weinstein communicated that he'd heard good things about her work and invited her to meet at a Manhattan hotel lobby, she said as prosecutors displayed her 2006 calendar with the meeting noted.
She and Weinstein talked business, and he was “very respectful and quite charming” and talked about other potential job opportunities, she recalled.
“Were you flirty or suggesting anything sexual between you and the defendant at that meeting?" the prosecutor asked.
“Absolutely not,” Haley replied.
She said another meeting in Weinstein's office also went pleasantly and professionally, and so did a ride with him, his assistant and his driver back to her apartment — and then the Hollywood honcho suddenly suggested she accompany him to Paris fashion shows.
Haley said she had no interest in going but gave a vague response, “trying to be polite.” They said goodbye.
Yet Weinstein repeatedly asked her to come to Paris with him for fashion shows, even showing up uninvited and barging into her apartment to try to persuade her, she said.
Haley told jurors she again declined, but Weinstein was “insistent and overwhelming,” so she told him: “I heard about your reputation with women.”
Weinstein took a step back, seeming offended, and quizzed her about what she meant, she recalled. She told jurors she actually hadn't heard much about Weinstein at that point but was just trying to avoid the Paris trip.
Eventually, Weinstein left the apartment and backed off, she said.
Almost two decades later, a series of sexual assault and sexual harassment allegations against Weinstein would energize the #MeToo movement's demands to hold powerful men accountable for misconduct toward women.
Haley, who has also gone by the name Mimi Haleyi, is expected to continue testifying Wednesday.
The retrial is happening because New York's highest court found the original trial was tainted by “egregious” judicial rulings and prejudicial testimony.
The retrial includes charges based on allegations from Haley and another accuser from the original trial, Jessica Mann, who was once an aspiring actor. She alleges that Weinstein raped her in 2013.
He’s also being tried, for the first time, on an allegation of forcing oral sex on former model Kaja Sokola in 2006. Her claim wasn't part of the first trial.
Mann and Sokola also are expected to testify at some point.
Weinstein's attorneys have argued that all three accusers consented to sexual encounters with him in hopes of getting work in show business.
The Associated Press generally does not name people who allege they have been sexually assaulted unless they give permission for their names to be used. Haley, Mann and Sokola have done so.
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This story has been corrected to show that Haley is 48, not 47.
Jennifer Peltz And Michael R. Sisak, The Associated Press
