NEW YORK — Harvey Weinstein ‘s lawyers got their turn Thursday to question a woman who alleges the one-time Hollywood heavyweight held her down on a bed and forced oral sex on her nearly two decades ago.
Miriam Haley, testifying for a third day at Weinstein’s retrial, was grilled about her decision to hire a lawyer and go public with her allegations as the #MeToo movement exploded in October 2017.
Defense attorney Jennifer Bonjean sparred with Haley over the details of her early statements to the press about the alleged assault, getting her to admit that she didn’t give interviewers back then a full picture of her interactions with Weinstein.
Haley denied Bonjean’s suggestion that she went public in hopes of suing Weinstein, but acknowledged she later filed a lawsuit and received a settlement of about $475,000.
Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not guilty and denies sexually assaulting anyone. His lawyers have argued that all of his accusers consented to sexual encounters with him in hopes of getting work in show business.
Haley, the first of three accusers expected to testify, said Wednesday that she maintained contact with Weinstein for more than a year after the alleged assault she says happened at his Manhattan apartment in July 2006.
Haley testified that she flew to Los Angeles on Weinstein’s dime a day after the alleged assault, and a few weeks later agreed to meet him at a Manhattan hotel. She said she had expected to talk in the lobby, but was instead directed to his room, where he pulled her into bed for sex.
Even after that, Haley testified, she kept in touch – sometimes calling Weinstein and sending emails signed “Lots of love” to him and his assistant over the next few months and years. She insisted she was looking for professional opportunity and was never interested in a romantic or sexual relationship with him.
Bonjean pointed out Thursday that when Haley went public, she didn’t mention her subsequent sexual encounter with Weinstein, nor their continued contact.
“You told the press only part of the story, correct?” Bonjean asked.
“I told the part that was relevant to what I was trying to share,” Haley said.
Bonjean noted that Haley didn’t report her allegations to police until June 2018, but held a press conference with lawyer Gloria Allred just days after she first saw media reports about other women accusing Weinstein of wrongdoing.
Bonjean asked if Haley had been “trying to send a message to” Weinstein.
“I wasn’t really thinking about Mr. Weinstein in that press conference,” Haley responded, adding that she spoke out to support other accusers who had also done so.
Bonjean will step away from Weinstein’s defense team after she finishes questioning Haley. Another case Bonjean is working on is going to trial in Brooklyn next week.
On Wednesday, under questioning by a prosecutor, Haley recalled the alleged 2006 assault as a friendly, professional meeting at Weinstein’s apartment that he turned into “the unthinkable.” She said he ignored her pleas of: “No, no – it’s not going to happen.”
Afterward, she felt shocked, disgusted and humiliated. She and two of her friends testified that she soon told them that Weinstein had sexually assaulted her.
Haley, who has also gone by the name Mimi Haleyi, is the first of Weinstein’s accusers to testify at his rape retrial. She is reprising and adding some new details to testimony that helped prosecutors get Weinstein’s 2020 conviction, which an appeals court later overturned.
On Wednesday, she recalled Weinstein had asked her, “Don’t you think we’re much closer now?” after either the alleged assault or their encounter a few weeks later, when she says she had unwanted, but not forced, sex with him.
Haley was briefly a production assistant on the Weinstein-produced “Project Runway” and had a series of interactions with him that were sometimes inappropriate and suggestive, but other times professional and polite, she told jurors.
Weinstein’s retrial includes charges related to Haley and another accuser from the original trial, Jessica Mann. Mann 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.
Mann and Sokola also are expected to testify.
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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