Process for Harvey Weinstein: Model Kaja Sokolan breaks out in tears

In the resumption against the fallen filmmogul Harvey Weinstein (73), the youngest prosecutor testified in the criminal trial on Thursday. The model Kaja Sokola (33) broke out in tears on the witness stand and said that “her soul was taken away”. Weinstein is said to have forced her as a 19-year-old in 2006 in a hotel room in oral sex.

Sokola is one of three leading witnesses in the recording procedure. In contrast to the other two witnesses, film producer Miriam Haley (48) and actress Jessica Mann (39), she had not testified in Weinstein’s last trial. The conviction of the former studio mogul from 2020 was lifted in April 2024. Before that, the Court of Appeal had decided that the judge inadmissibly approved testimony of other women who had nothing to do with the charges.

The Polish model said that she hit Weinstein for the first time in 2002. Her goal at this meeting was to strive for a acting career after working as a model in the USA and abroad. Sokola got a job as a statistin at “The Nanny Diaries” through Weinstein. “I never wanted anything else from Harvey Weinstein than honestly to say whether I had a chance to become an actress or not,” said Sokola. She never had a romantic or sexual interest in him.

The interaction with Weinstein is said to have taken place in 2006, after a meeting with Weinstein and Sokola’s sister in the Tribeca Grand Hotel. Sokola, who was 19 years old, said she arranged the meeting because she wanted her sister to meet Weinstein to prove that she had a possible career as an actress. After lunch, Weinstein asked her to get into a hotel room to read a script. There he violently pushed her on the bed, pulled her out and had oral sex with her. “I always said ‘please. Please stop. I don’t want to. But he didn’t listen to,” said Sokola. She was unable to move under his body weight.

Harvey Weinstein was once one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, then he became the symbol of an entire abuse system. Five years after his first conviction in New York, the resumption procedure against the fallen filmmogul Harvey Weinstein began at the end of April.

The 73-year-old has to answer for the accusation of rape a woman and forced sexual acts in two other women. As in his first process, Weinstein vehemently denies all accusations raised against him.