Miriam Haley, a former production assistant, accuses Weinstein of having imposed a sexual relation by force in 2006. One of the lawyers of the former producer AA attempted to protect the latter, invoking an approach motivated by money.
The lawyers of the fallen King of the Harvey Weinstein cinema, in trial in New York for rape and sexual assault, tried Thursday, May 1, to discredit the account of an alleged victim by saying that she was motivated by money.
For the third day in a row, Miriam Haley, a former production assistant who accuses Harvey Weinstein of having imposed a sexual relation by force in 2006, in the New York apartment of the magnate, testifies to the New York criminal court.
The former film producer was re -joined there after the resounding cancellation by the New York Court of Appeal in 2024 of his conviction at 23 years in prison in 2020 for rape and sexual assault.
An approach motivated by money according to a lawyer
Miriam Haley spoke after years of silence in October 2017, a few days after the New York Times and New Yorker shock investigations revealing that Harvey Weinstein, a powerful Hollywood character, was accused by many women of sexual assault. She then agreed to be one of the key witnesses to the accusation at the trial of the founder of the Miramax studios, in 2020 in New York.
An approach motivated by money launched one of the lawyers for the former producer on Thursday, Jennifer Bonjean.
-“You went to see the prosecutors only when you learned that you could not continue” Harvey Weinstein before civil justice, and claim damages, “only if criminal proceedings were engaged,” she said.
During sometimes tense exchanges, Miriam Haley refuted this type of approach. “I did not know, at the time, that there was an option to obtain financial compensation,” she replied.
Weinstein sentenced to 16 years in prison in California
The one who reigned on independent cinema, and whose fall in 2017 led to the #MeToo wave, was sentenced in 2020 for the assault of Miriam Haley and the rape of the aspiring actress Jessica Mann, a victory at the time for the movement against sexual violence against women.
But last year, the cancellation of the trial by the New York Court of Appeal, for procedural questions, was experienced as a step back for taking the speech of the victims.
Harvey Weinstein, 73, remains detained because he was also sentenced to California to 16 years in prison in another file of sex crimes.
Decreased by many health problems, he obtained to be able to sleep in the hospital, not in the cell, during this trial where he was retrisoned in New York.
