Ex-TV production assistant who accused Harvey Weinstein of sex assault takes stand at retrial

Yahoo

29-04-2025

A former TV production assistant who testified in 2020 about how Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her in his Soho loft took the stand to tell her story again at the monstrous movie mogul's retrial in Manhattan Tuesday.
In an afternoon of testimony, 'Miriam 'Mimi' Haley, 48, described how she met Weinstein in 2004, at a London afterparty for the premiere of 'The Aviator,' and told the jury about a string of interactions in 2006 leading up to the alleged attack.
Haley has accused Weinstein of pinning her down against her will on July 10, 2006, pulling out her tampon and forcibly performing oral sex on her.
Her testimony Tuesday stopped short of that encounter, and she's expected to take the stand to continue her direct examination on Wednesday.
Weinstein, 73, is being retried on allegations of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape stemming from separate allegations by Haley, aspiring actress Jessica Mann and new allegations by a third woman, Polish model Kaja Sokola,
New York's highest court threw out his 2020 conviction and subsequent 23-year sentence in May 2024, after finding that the trial court judge erroneously allowed testimony about sexual assaults for which Weinstein was not charged to establish a pattern of behavior.
Haley testified she reconnected with Weinstein after their 2004 introduction during the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, when she and close friend Mike White attended a party on the Tatoosh, a super-yacht owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
White had fallen ill and had closed up his production business the year prior, and Haley was looking for work in New York City — and Weinstein asked her to meet him at Miramax's offices at the Majestic Hotel in Cannes.
That meeting happened May 24, 2006, but it didn't go as Haley expected.
'He quickly started talking about other things like asking me whether I could give him a massage,' she recounted. 'I was taken aback by the question. … He said 'That's not what I meant. How about I give you a massage?' or something like that,' she said.
She took his number and left without giving or receiving a massage, then broke out in tears, she said. 'I was really disappointed and it was very humiliating,' she said.
Nevertheless, Weinstein got her an off-the-books job working for the 'Project Runway' TV show in New York, and offered to get her a visa so she could do more work for his company.
They had two 'perfectly pleasant' conversations afterwards, but things took a darker turn when she refused an invitation to accompany him on a Paris trip, she testified. Weinstein showed up unannounced at her East Village apartment, and pushed past her into her flat.
He backed off when she bluffed, 'I've heard about your reputation with women,' she said.
Haley's testimony is expected to continue Wednesday.
Regardless of the outcome of the trial, Weinstein has no chance of tasting freedom — he was convicted at a second trial in Los Angeles on separate rape and sexual assault charges in December 2022 and sentenced to 16 years.