Kaja Sokol arrives at Manhattan criminal court before the start of Harvey Weinstein’s retrial in New York, on May 13.Bing Guan/The Associated Press
A former teen fashion model testifying in Harvey Weinstein ‘s retrial on sexual assault charges was confronted on the stand Tuesday with a private journal where defence attorneys say she wrote about people who sexually abused her.
Kaja Sokola told the Manhattan jury on her third day on the witness stand that the journal named at least two people who had sexually assaulted her. Neither one, she acknowledged, was the disgraced former Hollywood mogul.
“It proves that I have not spoken about this for many years,” she offered up tearfully as Weinstein’s lawyer and then the judge attempted to cut her off.
The Polish model, now a 39-year-old psychotherapist, also confirmed under questioning that the “Pulp Fiction” producer was mentioned in the journal as having wronged her, but for altogether different reasons.
Under an entry for “Harvey W” she wrote that he was “promising me help,” but “nothing came out of it.”
Earlier, Sokola had protested that the journal, which she wrote in Polish in 2015, shouldn’t be discussed in open court as she’d written it as part of a substance abuse treatment program.
She explained that one of the steps of treatment was to list all the people and things with which she held resentment.
“This is very inappropriate,” Sokola pleaded as one of Weinstein’s attorneys began to cite portions of the text to the jury. “Please don’t read that. This is my personal things. I’m not on trial here.”
Judge Curtis Farber assured Sokola, as the jury took its lunch break, that he would only permit limited questioning around the document. He also said he had concerns about the journal’s completeness and authenticity, wondering how defence lawyers had obtained what appears to be private medical records.
“This might backfire tremendously” for the defence, Farber said at one point, as prosecutors also strongly opposed inclusion of the journal as evidence in the trial. “That’s the risk they’re willing to take.”
Sokola testified last week that Weinstein exploited her dreams of an acting career to subject her to unwanted sexual advances, starting days after they met in 2002, while she was a 16-year-old on a modelling trip to New York.
Some of those allegations are beyond the legal time limit for criminal charges, but Weinstein faces a criminal sex act charge over Sokola’s claim that he forced oral sex on her in 2006.
Prosecutors added the charge to the landmark #MeToo case last year, after an appeals court overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction. The guilty verdict pertained to allegations from two other women, who also have testified or are expected to testify at the retrial.
Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not guilty and denies ever sexually assaulting anyone.
His lawyers, in their cross-examination of Sokola that began Friday, have sought to raise doubts about her allegations, portraying her as a wannabe actor who tried to leverage her consensual relations with the former studio boss.
The Associated Press generally does not name people who allege they have been sexually assaulted, but Sokola has given her permission to be identified.
