NEW YORK -- Five years after she first told her story to a jury, one of Harvey Weinstein's accusers testified anew on April 30, 2025, that he held her down on a bed and forced oral sex on her after she told him: "No, no - it's not going to happen." "The unthinkable was happening," Miriam Haley testified, dabbing her eyes as she recalled the alleged July 2006 assault. Weinstein, sitting between his lawyers, shook his head as she spoke. The 73-year-old former Hollywood honcho has pleaded not guilty and denies sexually assaulting anyone.
Haley, who has also gone by the name Mimi Haleyi, is the first of Weinstein's accusers to testify at his rape retrial. This retrial is taking place because New York's highest court overturned his 2020 conviction. Haley, now 48 and working in advertising, testified at the original trial, sometimes breaking into sobs. Her demeanor Wednesday was calm, if briefly tearful, as she answered prosecutors' graphic questions about the alleged assault.
While much of her account mirrored her earlier testimony, there were some additional details. She recalled Weinstein asking, "Don't you think we're much closer now?" after either the alleged assault or a subsequent occasion when she says she had unwanted, but not forced, sex with him. She also recalled telling him after the second encounter, "You know you can't keep doing this." Weinstein's attorneys haven't yet had their chance to question Haley and potentially try to poke holes in her account. The defense has argued that all of Weinstein's accusers consented to sexual encounters with him in hopes of getting work in show business.
Born in Finland and raised in Sweden, Haley was briefly a production assistant on the Weinstein-produced reality show "Project Runway". She met Weinstein through a mutual connection. Haley accepted an invitation to visit Weinstein's Manhattan apartment one early evening because it would have been odd to decline; she was due to fly on his company's dime to Los Angeles the next day to see a premiere of the company's film "Clerks II." After she and Weinstein briefly chatted on his living room sofa, he lunged to kiss her, she testified. She said she leaped up and rebuffed him, but he grabbed her and forcibly backed her into a bedroom. Then, Haley said, he pinned her down on a bed and performed oral sex on her, ignoring her pleas that she didn't want it.
Afterward, she felt shocked, disgusted, and humiliated. She and two of her friends testified that she soon told them that Weinstein had sexually assaulted her. But Haley said she didn't call police because she feared getting in immigration trouble for having worked on "Project Runway" while on a tourist visa. Haley said she agreed to meet Weinstein at a Manhattan hotel a few weeks after the alleged assault, expecting to talk in the lobby and hoping "to navigate the whole situation in a way that would make me feel better about myself and would have the most upside to me." She was directed instead to his room, where he promptly steered her onto the bed, she testified. She said she didn't want sex but didn't physically resist because she felt stupid for agreeing to meet him. Still, "I made it clear at all occasions when he made advances that I didn't want to go there," she said.
Haley didn't cut off contact with Weinstein. Over the next few months and years, she sometimes called Weinstein and sent cordial emails to him and his assistant, from whom she also asked for a plane ticket to London, according to testimony and documents. In a February 2007 letter that wasn't seen at the first trial, she told Weinstein she'd "love you forever... and ever..." if he invested in an online TV show idea of hers. Haley testified that she addressed Weinstein warmly to try to win his professional backing, nothing else, and that she "suppressed a lot of things" in order to cope. At the first trial, Weinstein's lawyers emphasized Haley's continued exchanges with him. This time, prosecutors delved into those contacts more extensively, perhaps seeking to blunt them as an attack line for the defense.
Weinstein's retrial includes charges related to Haley and another accuser from the original trial, Jessica Mann. Mann alleges that Weinstein raped her in 2013. He's also being tried, for the first time, on an allegation of forcing oral sex on former model Kaja Sokola in 2006. Mann and Sokola also are expected to testify. The Associated Press generally does not name people who allege they have been sexually assaulted unless they give permission for their names to be used. Haley, Mann, and Sokola have done so.
On May 1, 2025, Weinstein's lawyers got their turn to question Haley. They grilled her about her decision to hire a lawyer and go public with her allegations as the #MeToo movement exploded in October 2017. Defense attorney Jennifer Bonjean sparred with Haley over the details of her early statements to the press about the alleged assault, getting her to admit that she didn't give interviewers back then a full picture of her relationship with Weinstein. Haley denied Bonjean’s suggestion that she went public in hopes of suing Weinstein, but acknowledged she later filed a lawsuit and received a settlement of about $475,000.
Haley testified she maintained contact with Weinstein for over a year after the alleged assault in July 2006. She flew to Los Angeles on Weinstein's dime a day after the alleged assault and met him at a Manhattan hotel a few weeks later. She kept in touch, sometimes calling Weinstein and sending emails signed "Lots of love" over the next few months and years. Haley didn't report her allegations to police until June 2018, but held a press conference with lawyer Gloria Allred just days after she first saw media reports about other women accusing Weinstein of wrongdoing. Bonjean will step away from Weinstein’s defense team after she finishes questioning Haley.
Haley's testimony is expected to continue, and the retrial includes charges based on allegations from Haley, Mann, and Sokola. The Associated Press generally does not name people who allege they have been sexually assaulted unless they give permission for their names to be used. Haley, Mann, and Sokola have done so. As the trial unfolds, the courtroom remains a place of tension and scrutiny, reflecting the broader societal implications of the #MeToo movement and the ongoing fight against sexual violence.
