Five years later, she told the court in tears that Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her former "Project Runway" production assistant Miriam Haley stood up again Tuesday to revisit the suffering she claimed she suffered at the hands of a shamed film tycoon.
Haley returns to testify as New York’s Supreme Court overturned Weinstein’s landmark 2020 conviction last year that defined the #MeToo movement and helped turn Weinstein into Hollywood’s Paria.
When Weinstein's lawyers began to file a narrative against her, she said she had grown up in Sweden and said she had suffered as a child and had hardly started to testify.
Weinstein's defense team is expected to watch Hayley's testimony closely, he said Weinstein gave her oral sex in July 2006 as she and actor Jessica Mann testified at the 2020 trial. Mann said Weinstein raped her in a room in the Manhattan hotel in 2013.
Weinstein was charged one count on one count of sexual acts related to Hayley and one count in Mann case and one count of criminal sexual conduct in third-degree rape.
This time, Weinstein was also charged with one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, accused of assaulting former Polish model Kaja Sokola.
Sokola, who is not in the 2020 trial, claimed in the lawsuit that Weinstein had oral sex at a Manhattan Hotel in 2006 when she was 16 years old.
Weinstein, 73, denied attacking the three women.
Haley, 47, said she first met Weinstein at a party in 2004 for the film's premiere, The Pilot.
"I introduced myself and said, 'I am Mimi'."
Haley said she reconnected with Weinstein at the Cannes Film Festival in France a few years later. She said she was looking for an opportunity to be a production assistant in New York and agreed to meet him at his hotel.
Hayley said once they were there, Weinstein commented on her legs and “asked me if I could give him a massage.” She testified that she said no, and later cried.
"I was surprised and humiliated," Haley said.
Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg asked her if she was interested in Weinstein “romantic or sexually”, and Hayley replied: “No, I don’t. I’m trying to find a job there.”
Despite this, despite not being rejected, Weinstein arranged for her to work on the “Project Runway”, even though she lacked a work visa in the United States and Harry adjourned before the courtroom.
Haley is expected to return to the stands on Wednesday and recount her testimony about the alleged attack.
At the 2020 trial, Haley testified that she visited Weinstein at his Lower Manhattan apartment shortly after the show, where she said he nailed her to the bed and forced her to have a blowjob.
Haley told jurors in the stands that during the alleged assault, she had “I was raped.”
Hailey said she weighed her choices, not sure what to do.
"If I screamed 'rape', would anyone hear me?" she said. “I checked it and decided to endure it.”
Hayley testified during a retrial after a week after her former roommate and close friend Christine Pressman told jurors that Hayley confided to her in September 2006 that Weinstein beat her.
“I stayed at the home of Lorne Michaels in East Hampton, where Miriam was there,” Pressman refers to the creator of “Saturday Night Live.” "Obviously, she was upset, she was crying, she was very upset; she was very active and had a lot of intensity. She said it was Harvey Weinstein. She was shocked. She described what happened, and it was disgusting."
When asked about her advice to her friend, the media said: "I told her to pass it and not go to the police again. I told her that she shouldn't go to the police or the authorities were raped by Harvey Weinstein."
Another former roommate, Elizabeth Entin, said Haley also told her that Weinstein attacked her. But she said she gave Hayley different guidance.
"He raped my friend and I wasn't happy with that," Ending said. "I told her to call the lawyer to browse the system. I despise anyone who raped my friend. She's not my only friend to be raped."
Assistant District Attorney Shannon Lucey said in his opening remarks that Weinstein was a continuous sexual predator who used his power as a "titan" in the film industry to prey on young women, and she then described in a graphic way what he did to them.
"They have been quiet for many years," Lucey said.
In his opening speech, Weinstein's chief attorney Arthur Aidala insisted that Weinstein's sexual encounter with the plaintiff was "deal" and "voluntary."
"Casting sofas are not crime scenes," he said.