NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein ’s #MeToo retrial opened Wednesday, giving a new jury a fresh look at familiar rape and sexual assault allegations — plus a newly added claim from a former model.
For the first time, prosecutors publicly identified Kaja Sokola and detailed her account of what unfolded between her and the Oscar-winning movie producer in the early 2000s. He is criminally charged with forcing oral sex on her in 2006, but she also accused him in a civil lawsuit of groping her against her will four years earlier, when she was 16.
Like the two other accusers in the case, Sokola alleges a complex series of encounters and reactions — being sexually assaulted, yet staying in touch, wary of Weinstein but wanting to remain on good terms with a power broker who dangled the possibility of an acting career.
“Why did the defendant hold this level of power and control in the eyes of these three women? … It’s because Harvey Weinstein defined the field,” prosecutor Shannon Lucey told jurors in an opening statement. “He knew how tempting promises of success were. He produced, he choreographed, he therefore directed, their ultimate silence for years.”
AP AUDIO: Weinstein’s #MeToo rape retrial opens with added allegations from a former model
AP correspondent Julie Walker reports Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial has started with opening arguments.
Weinstein has pleaded not guilty, and defense lawyer Arthur Aidala countered by portraying the accusers as willing partners in a showbiz quid pro quo.
“The casting couch is not a crime scene,” Aidala told the majority-female jury. He compared prosecutors’ allegations to the preview of a movie that “falls flat on its face.”
A reversal and a retrial
The 73-year-old Weinstein, seated in the wheelchair he now uses because of health problems, didn’t look at Lucey or the jury during her presentation. But Weinstein watched intently as Aidala outlined his defense.
The retrial is happening because New York’s top court last year threw out Weinstein’s conviction, which in 2020 was a watershed moment for the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct. The high court found that the previous trial judge allowed prejudicial testimony about allegations separate from the charges.