First accuser takes the witness stand at Harvey Weinstein’s #MeToo
retrial
[April 30, 2025]
By JENNIFER PELTZ and MICHAEL R. SISAK
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.
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Miriam Haley, center, an accuser testifying at Harvey Weinstein's
rape trial, arrives to the courtroom after a break in New York,
Tuesday, April 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
 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.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
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