The ailing and jailed film producer Harvey Weinstein was once a titan of industry who preyed upon young women in a “profoundly psychological” manner while holding their dreams in his hands, a jury heard in opening statements Wednesday at his Manhattan rape and sexual assault retrial.
Five years after Weinstein’s landmark conviction — last year overturned by an appeals court due to errors at the first trial — a prosecutor unveiled new allegations against the disgraced producer involving a minor victim.
Assistant District Attorney Shannon Lucey told jurors in Manhattan Supreme Court that over the course of the trial, they would hear from that woman, Kaja Sokola, a native of Poland who is now 38, about Weinstein allegedly molesting and sexually assaulting her multiple times starting when she was 16, and two others who allege they were raped and sexually assaulted by Weinstein, Jessica Mann and Miriam Haley.
Describing Weinstein as now “a frail man in a wheelchair,” Lucey said evidence would make clear that he was for a long time larger than life and “one of the most powerful men in showbusiness” who enjoyed unfettered power in the industry for more than 30 years.
“Who was so used to getting what he wanted when he wanted,” Lucey said. “Even when the women he wanted told him no and resisted him.”
The fallen moviemaker’s landmark 2020 conviction and subsequent 23-year prison sentence were thrown out last year by New York’s Court of Appeals, which found that the trial court judge, James Burke, erroneously permitted a jury to hear testimony concerning incidents for which Weinstein was not charged. He had been convicted on counts stemming from allegations involving Haley and Mann, both set to testify again.
In his opening statement, Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, accused the alleged victims of lying and said they engaged in yearslong, “mutually beneficial” relationships with Weinstein.
“He gets them jobs, and in return, they fool around — consensually,” Aidala said, adding the “casting couch” was not a crime scene and had been going on “since the beginning of time.”
“Was it immoral? 100%,” Aidala said. “Immoral on both ends.”
The defense attorney said Mann, Haley and Sokola had “four million reasons” to lie, due to their collecting a total of $4 million in civil matters for Weinstein’s abuse.
Jessica Mann
Sokola is expected to testify about Weinstein first molesting her when he was in his fifties, and she was 16, visiting the city for the first time for a modeling job. Four years later, in 2006, he would subdue her in a Manhattan hotel room and forcibly perform oral sex on her “while she cried and said, ‘Please don’t do this,’” the prosecutor alleged.
Lucey told the jury they’d hear from Haley about how Weinstein began preying upon her after getting her a job in production on Project Runway, which was paid in cash as she was undocumented, and forcing oral sex on her after luring her to his Soho loft in 2006.
Lucey said Mann would testify about a toxic relationship with Weinstein, who was nearly twice her age, that began after she moved to Los Angeles from a poor upbringing in an evangelical family as she sought to make it as an actor.
Mann, who first met the “Pulp Fiction” producer at an event with her roommate, dodged Weinstein’s advances successfully until she didn’t, the prosecutor said, acknowledging several of their sexual encounters were consensual.
Lucey said jurors would hear from Mann and an expert about the confusing dynamic she had with her abuser and a disturbing incident at the DoubleTree hotel on E. 51st St. and Lexington Ave in 2013 when Mann said no and Weinstein didn’t listen, raping her against will.
“She will explain in her own words why she attempted human connection with a man who was abusing her,” the ADA said.
Weinstein’s downfall came in 2017 when more than 80 women accused him of sexual misconduct in exposés in The New Yorker and The New York Times, supercharging the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment in the workplace.
He has pleaded not guilty to all charges in the case being retried by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who was not yet in office when Weinstein last went on trial in New York.
In December 2022, Weinstein was convicted a second time at a separate Los Angeles trial and sentenced to another 16 years in prison, a term he’s set to continue serving regardless of the outcome of his retrial.
