‘I’m being raped’: Weinstein accuser details alleged assault
NEW YORK >> As she tried to fight off Harvey Weinstein’s advances, Mimi Haleyi told him “no, no, no” before he held her down on a bed and forcibly performed oral sex on her, she said in emotional testimony Monday at Weinstein’s trial.
Haleyi, one of two women whose assault accusations led to Weinstein’s trial, took the stand Monday and, at times sobbing, detailed her allegation that the disgraced movie mogul sexually assaulted her 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,” the former “Project Runway” production assistant testified, adding that she told Weinstein she was menstruating in an attempt to deter him.
Haleyi, now 42, told jurors 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.”
Haleyi is the first of the two women at the heart of the case to take the stand at his trial. A total of six accusers are expected to testify, but because of the statute of limitations and other legal technicalities, Weinstein is charged in only two incidents: The alleged rape of an aspiring actress in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013 and the alleged sexual assault of Haleyi. Under New York law applicable at the time, Weinstein is not being charged with rape in connection with Haleyi’s accusations.
Weinstein, 67, has insisted any sexual encounters were consensual.
One of his attorneys, Damon Cheronis, used his cross examination to zero in on Haleyi’s continued relationship with Weinstein after the alleged assault.
He showed jurors a friendly email she sent him after they ran into each other at the Cannes Film Festival 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.
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 has.
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 in Cannes 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.”