HARV’S SICK SEX CRIME
Her story of attack could send perv to jail
Mimi Haleyi recounts Tuesday how Hollywood predator Harvey Weinstein (inset) allegedly committed a vile assault against her at his SoHo home — pinning her down, pulling out her tampon and performing oral sex on her.
TWO SEPARATE but chillingly similar accounts of Harvey Weinstein forcibly performing oral sex on unwilling women in 2006 and 2010 emerged Tuesday — with one possibly opening the door to New York criminal charges.
Production assistant Mimi Haleyi broke down in tears as she described Weinstein pinning her down in a dark bedroom in his Manhattan residence a decade ago and forcing himself on her orally while she was menstruating.
“He held me down on the bed. I tried to get away, tried to get him off me, and kept asking him to stop but it was impossible. He was extremely persistent and physically overpowering,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.
Haleyi said she was adamant she did not consent to the sexual contact and even warned Weinstein she was menstruating, but he refused to take no for an answer.
“He even pulled my tampon out. I was in disbelief and disgusted. I would not want anyone to do that to me, even if the person was a romantic partner,” she said at a Manhattan press conference with her lawyer Gloria Allred.
Haleyi had not reported the incident to police as of Tuesday afternoon, Allred confirmed to the Daily News.
“There’s no decision at this time,” Allred said when pressed on whether Haleyi would be willing to meet with investigators already probing other allegations against Weinstein.
Asked if NYPD officials reached out to request a sitdown, Allred declined to answer.
“If she spoke to (investigators), it would be to answer any questions they might have that might be relevant to their investigation,” Allred said.
One legal expert said the assault described by Haleyi could lead to criminal charges, since New York did away with the statute of limitations for first-degree criminal sex acts on June 23, 2006. Cases that were still active when the law was changed could be grandfathered in, the expert said.
According to a state statute, a person is guilty of a criminal sexual act in the first degree “when he
or she engages in oral sexual conduct or anal sexual conduct with another person by forcible compulsion.”
“If it were presented as a forcible act, that would be a class B felony, which would not have a statute of limitations, versus a class E, which would be a ‘no means no’ claim, and that does have a five-year statute of limitations,” Eric Baum of Eisenberg & Baum told The News.
“In the event that the district attorney determines that it was a forcible sexual act, Harvey Weinstein could be charged with that crime,” the attorney said.
And in a lawsuit filed Tuesday, aspiring New York actress Dominique Huett (photo inset) said Weinstein lured her to his room at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills in November 2010 under the guise of a business meeting.
She said once they walked into the room, Weinstein excused himself and returned wearing only a bathrobe.
Weinstein asked for a massage, and when Huett declined, he “demanded” she comply, the suit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court states.
The disgraced movie mogul \asked to perform oral sex on Huett and removed her clothing and initiated the contact against her wishes as she “froze” in fear, according to court papers.
“Unfortunately, what happened to her is what happens to a lot of women in that situation. They go into a state of tonic immobility. It’s like an out-of-body experience, a paralysis, like an animal playing dead when it’s attacked,” Huett’s lawyer Jeffrey Herman told The News.
“She described it as being terrified, her mind sort of spinning, and she gave in. And then she blamed herself for not fighting to get up and walk out of the room,” he said.
Huett’s lawsuit names the Weinstein Co., the firm Weinstein co-founded with his brother Bob Weinstein, as the sole defendant.
It claims the company’s executives, officers and employees had “actual knowledge of Weinstein’s repeated acts of sexual misconduct” and knowingly “aided and abetted” his predatory behavior.
The suit alleges female Weinstein Co. staffers were routinely used as “honeypots” to give victims a false sense of security at the start of meetings that they left after only a few minutes. The negligence lawsuit asks for general and punitive damages to be decided at trial. Asked if Huett, 35, planned to tell her story to Beverly Hills police, Herman said he couldn’t comment. “Generally, with all my clients, I always recommend they report things to the proper authorities,” he said. “From a civil perspective, we were able to file this lawsuit because California has a delayed discovery doctrine, which means you have one year from when you learn you have a claim. She didn’t know before that the company was involved and was enabling this to go on and had tacitly endorsed it by allowing him to stay and use his position to seek women,” Herman said.
“One of the main reasons she wants to put her name out there is to hopefully create a seismic shift in Hollywood where this will no longer be tolerated,” he said.
More than 40 women — including actresses Ashley Judd, Rose McGowan, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and Lupita Nyong’o — have accused Weinstein of sexual harassment or assault.
“Any allegations of nonconsensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein,” a Weinstein spokeswoman said Tuesday.