Ex-model takes the stand in Harvey Weinstein’s retrial. It’s the first time she has testified

NEW YORK (AP) - Days into Harvey Weinstein ‘s first sexual assault trial in 2020, prosecutors privately spoke for the first time with a former model who alleged that he had forced oral sex on her.

But that jury was never told about Kaja (KEYE'-ah) Sokola’s claim. Prosecutors have said they still were investigating the allegation when Weinstein, a onetime movie tycoon-turned- #MeToo pariah, was convicted in February 2020 of charges based on other women’s accusations.

On Wednesday, Sokola began to tell a new jury her story.

Sokola didn’t look at Weinstein as she walked past him and onto the witness stand in a Manhattan courtroom where he’s on trial again. An appeals court overturned his 2020 rape and sexual assault conviction, sending those charges back for retrial, and prosecutors subsequently added another sexual assault charge based on Sokola’s allegations.

As she began testifying about her life before the alleged 2006 assault, Weinstein looked toward her, with his right hand across his mouth.

Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. His lawyers contend that his accusers consented to sexual encounters with him in hopes of getting movie and TV opportunities, and the defense has emphasized that the women stayed in contact with him for a while after the alleged assaults.

The women, meanwhile, say the Oscar-winning producer used the prospect of show business work to prey on them.

The Polish-born Sokola, 39, sued Weinstein after industry whispers about his behavior toward women became a chorus of public accusations in 2017, fueling the #MeToo movement and its calls for accountability for sexual misconduct. Prosecutors have said Sokola eventually received $3.5 million in compensation.

She was introduced to Weinstein while on a modeling trip to New York in 2002, when she was 16, according to prosecutors.

In her lawsuits, Sokola said that shortly after she met Weinstein, he invited her to lunch to discuss her career but then sexually assaulted her. The lawsuits alleged he sexually harassed and emotionally abused her for years afterward.

The criminal charge stems from one instance when Sokola maintains that Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in a Manhattan hotel in May 2006.

Prosecutors have said it happened after Weinstein arranged for Sokola to be an extra in the film "The Nanny Diaries" and met her visiting older sister, whom she was trying to impress.

"She was proud of knowing him," her sister, cardiologist Dr. Ewa (pronounced EH'-vah) Sokola, told jurors Wednesday.

She said the three of them met in a hotel lobby, chatted for about an hour about Italian movies and the heavyset Weinstein’s heart health, and then he and the model left the table together.

Kaja Sokola was tense when she returned about a half-hour later - "like somebody waiting for the result of an exam" or the Oscars - but didn’t say anything about the alleged sexual assault, Dr. Sokola told jurors.

She said she was shocked to learn about the claim over a decade later, when she read about it in a magazine article.

Weinstein’s lawyers will get a chance to question Kaja Sokola in the coming days. In an opening statement last month, defense attorney Arthur Aidala questioned why she waited years to come forward. Prosecutors have argued that accusers were reluctant to speak up because of Weinstein’s wealth and influence.

Prosecutors have said Sokola’s attorneys contacted them on the eve of Weinstein’s first trial to say she was willing to be interviewed. Prosecutors have said they soon spoke with her and began investigating, but didn’t initially pursue charges because Weinstein was convicted and the coronavirus pandemic loomed.

They revived the Sokola investigation after New York’s highest court reversed Weinstein’s conviction.

Weinstein’s lawyers fought unsuccessfully to keep Sokola’s allegation out of the retrial. They accused prosecutors of "smuggling an additional charge into the case for the improper purpose of bolstering the credibility" of other accusers.

One of the others, Miriam Haley, testified last week that Weinstein forced oral sex on her in 2006. The third accuser in the case, Jessica Mann, is expected to testify later.

The Associated Press generally does not name sexual assault accusers without their permission, which Haley, Mann and Sokola have given.