Weinstein accuser details encounter in 2006
NEW YORK — At times sobbing, former Project Runway production assistant Mimi Haleyi told jurors Monday at Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial how she tried to fight off the movie mogul and told him “no, no, no” while he sexually assaulted her.
As one of two women whose assault claims led to Weinstein’s charges, Haleyi took the stand and detailed her allegation about their encounter at his New York City apartment in 2006.
“I did reject him, but he insisted. Every time I tried to get off the bed, he would push me back and hold me down,” she testified Monday.
Haleyi, now 42, testified she thought, “I’m being raped,” and considered different options. “If I scream rape, will someone hear me?” she wondered.
“I checked out and decided to endure it,” she said. “That was the safest thing I could do.”
Weinstein, 67, is charged with sexually assaulting Haleyi and raping an aspiring actress in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013. He insists any sexual encounters were consensual.
Haleyi also described a second encounter in a Tribeca hotel room where she said she “went numb” as he took her hand, pulled her toward the bed and had intercourse with her.
Haleyi said she “just felt like an idiot” for letting Weinstein persuade her to meet again a few weeks after the first encounter, but she thought seeing him could help her regain power as she tried to make sense of what had happened in Weinstein’s apartment.
Asked if she wanted to have sex with Weinstein that night, she said, “no.”
She said she didn’t call the police because she was working in the U.S. on a tourist visa and was scared of Weinstein’s power, telling jurors: “Obviously, Mr. Weinstein has a lot more power and resources and connections and so forth. I didn’t think I’d stand a chance.”
Haleyi, who has started using an altered last name to avoid being associated with Weinstein on internet searches, is the first of the two women at the heart of the case to take the stand. The closely watched #MeToo-era trial is in its fourth day of testimony.
Last week, Sopranos actress Annabella Sciorra testified that Weinstein overpowered and raped her after barging into her apartment in the mid-1990s. While outside the statute of limitations for criminal charges, Sciorra’s allegations could be a factor as prosecutors look to prove Weinstein has engaged in a pattern of predatory behavior.
Haleyi went public with her allegations at an October 2017 news conference, appearing in front of cameras alongside lawyer Gloria Allred, who also represents Sciorra and other Weinstein accusers.
Haleyi, born in Helsinki, Finland, and raised in Sweden, said she met Weinstein while in her 20s at the 2004 London premiere of the Leonardo DiCaprio film The Aviator.
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 declined, saying she was “extremely humiliated.”
More meetings followed, and Weinstein secured Haleyi a job helping on the set of Project Runway, the reality competition show he produced. She testified that before their encounter in his apartment, Weinstein showed up at her apartment and begged her to join him on a trip to Paris for a fashion show.
“At one point, because I just didn’t know how to shut it down so to speak. … So I said, ‘You know you have a terrible reputation with women, I’ve heard,’” Haleyi said.
Weinstein “got offended,” she said. “He stepped back and said, ‘What have you heard?’”
Asked by prosecutor Meghan Hast if she had any romantic or sexual interest in Weinstein, Haleyi firmly answered: “Not at all, no.”
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they have been victims of sexual assault, unless they agree to be named as Haleyi and Sciorra have.
On cross-examination, defense lawyer Damon Cheronis seized on Haleyi’s continued interactions with Weinstein, displaying on a large screen a friendly email she sent him after they ran into each other in Cannes in 2008.
Cheronis pointed to calendar entries and emails that show Haleyi meeting with Weinstein, pitching him on a television show and traveling at his expense to Los Angeles and London. When they couldn’t connect before she left London, she sent him an email lamenting: “totally bummed to have missed you guys.”
Haleyi conceded she’d been in contact with Weinstein “not often, but yes occasionally” and that she sent the 2008 email after a newspaper article reminded her of a conversation they had weeks before the alleged assault.