Harvey Weinstein jury to hear from accuser alleging forced oral sex in his apartment
Harvey Weinstein is due to be confronted in court today by a woman who claims he sexually assaulted her in his New York City apartment - after rebuffing his advances by telling him: “I hear you have a terrible reputation with women.”
The fallen movie mogul, 67, is charged with forcibly performing oral sex Mimi Haleyi, on the former production assistant and raping another woman, an aspiring actress, in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013. He insists any sexual encounters were consensual.
Haleyi, whose legal name is Miriam Haley, will be the first of the two women whose accusations are at the heart of the charges against Weinstein to take the stand at the closely watched #MeToo-era trial, which is entering its fourth day of testimony.
Haleyi went public with her allegations in October 2017 at news conference alongside lawyer Gloria Allred who represents several other Weinstein accusers.
Haley, who was born in England and raised in Sweden, says she met Weinstein at the 2004 London premiere of the Leonardo DiCaprio film ‘The Aviator’.
Their paths crossed in 2006 at the Cannes Film Festival where he invited her to his hotel room and asked for a massage after she said she would like to work on one of his productions.
They crossed paths again at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 and, when she expressed interest in working on one of his productions, he invited her to his hotel room and asked for a massage.
She said she replied: "No sorry, I'm not a masseuse,” however more meetings followed and she was eventually given a job on the set of Project Runway.
The alleged assault occurred at Weinstein's Soho apartment after he sent a car to
pick Haleyi up for what she thought was a friendly meeting about her career.
Instead, she said, Weinstein pushed her onto a bed and forced his mouth onto her genitals. She said she tried to get him to stop, even telling him she was menstruating, but he wouldn't relent.
"I was mortified. I was in disbelief and disgusted," she said.
Prosecutor Meghan Hast, in her opening statement, said there was a hotel room encounter that Haleyi didn't reveal in 2017, in which she kept still and "let him degrade her."
With agencies
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