Harvey Weinstein Accuser Kaja Sokola on Sister’s Betrayal, Verdict

Kaja Sokola spent 5 intense days testifying in Harvey Weinstein‘s New York retrial. Her testimony coated two alleged cases of sexual assault: one in 2002, when she was 16, and one other at a Tribeca lodge in 2006. On June 11, a New York jury acquitted Weinstein of sexually assaulting Sokola.

However for the previous Polish mannequin–turned–psychotherapist, neither the testimony nor the decision was the toughest a part of Weinstein’s months-long retrial in New York.

“The devastating half was not the trial itself — it was the betrayal of my sister,” Sokola instructed Selection. “I really don’t perceive how she might — how anybody might do one thing like that.”

On her fourth day on the stand, the protection confronted her with a non-public journal during which she documented individuals who had sexually assaulted her — however didn’t embrace Weinstein. The journal, which Sokola stated was a part of a “workbook for habit therapy,” was offered to the protection by her older sister, Ewa.

“Please don’t learn that,” she stated on the witness stand. “That is my private issues.”

The previous producer was talked about in an entry referring to “Harvey W,” the place Sokola wrote that he was “promising assist” however “nothing got here of it.” The protection used the journal to argue that Sokola had fabricated her assault allegation.

Sokola instructed Selection that she had written about Weinstein’s abuse in different diaries, however these weren’t learn for the jury.

“My sister selected to convey this one factor from Poland that stated what it stated,” she stated. “This felt very unjust and really hurtful… These sorts of techniques are simply exhibiting how soiled of a recreation it’s for them.”

Sokola stated her relationship along with her sister has been strained over time.

“My sister was attempting to do plenty of dangerous issues to me up to now,” she stated. “Lots of this was correlated with cash, so we didn’t have — let’s say — the very best relationship ever.”

Michael Cibella, Weinstein’s lawyer who questioned Sokola, instructed Selection that he’s “not conscious of another journals which have any allegations of abuse in opposition to Weinstein.”

“We had this journal which had allegations of sexual abuse in opposition to 4 different folks, and in that very same writing, talked about Harvey Weinstein having made guarantees that he didn’t preserve,” Cibella stated. “Nothing about sexual abuse in any respect in opposition to Harvey Weinstein.”

Ewa Sokola testified for the prosecution within the case. She corroborated that she and Kaja had a lunch assembly with Weinstein at a Tribeca lodge in 2006. At one level through the meal, Kaja and Weinstein took an elevator upstairs collectively whereas Ewa remained on the desk.

When Kaja returned by herself, the sisters left the lodge. Ewa recalled that Kaja seemed to be beneath “excessive stress” after her time alone with Weinstein, although the 2 went on as if it have been a “common day.”

Throughout cross-examination, when the protection requested whether or not Kaja had ever stated something adverse about Weinstein earlier than 2017, Ewa stated no. “She was pleased with understanding him,” she instructed the courtroom.

Within the protection’s closing argument, Arthur Aidala — one other one among Weinstein’s attorneys — talked about Ewa to the jury once more, arguing that she finally turned a protection witness after her testimony. “She was supporting our idea of the case,” Aidala stated. “That every part was positive along with her sister.”

Over the cellphone, Cibella counseled Ewa for her testimony. “She instructed the entire story — not only one a part of the story that helped the prosecutor.”

Kaja Sokola, in the meantime, has a idea about how her sister related with the protection. She stated that her sister’s pal — an lawyer Ewa’s identified for roughly 20 years — works for Aidala’s agency, which she believes “speaks loads.”

“It’s very unhappy and unlucky whenever you see households being damaged up due to these sorts of causes,” she stated.

Sokola additionally stated that her sister’s lawyer pal had visited her on the New York condominium she lived in again in 2006. “He knew that I had identified Harvey for a very long time, and that I used to be petrified of him for a really very long time.”

“I’m accustomed to the lawyer that she is referring to, and he doesn’t work at Arthur Aidala’s agency,” Cibella replied when requested about Kaja’s claims. “However we’re accustomed to that lawyer, and it’s somebody that [Ewa’s] had a friendship with for fairly a while.”

Kaja Sokola didn’t testify at Weinstein’s 2020 trial. Nonetheless, after an appeals court docket overturned his rape and sexual assault convictions — sending the case again for retrial — prosecutors added a brand new sexual assault cost in September 2024 primarily based on the allegations by a then-anonymous Kaja. Her id was revealed to the general public months later, throughout opening statements of Weinstein’s retrial in late April.

“He seemed depressing, and he seemed like a sick, outdated man,” Sokola instructed Selection of seeing Weinstein within the courtroom. “A part of me felt sorry for him, as a result of this man has tousled his life. He has achieved issues which might be crimes and, proper now, he’s paying the value for it. It didn’t really feel like seeing the Harvey that I knew from years in the past.”

In her testimony, Sokola described two alleged sexual assaults by Weinstein in 2002 and 2006. The protection, nonetheless, repeatedly argued through the trial that Kaja by no means met Weinstein in 2002, pointing to an absence of proof — corresponding to writings or pictures — exhibiting the 2 collectively that 12 months.

“Harvey didn’t meet this girl when she was 16 years outdated,” Cibella reasserted to Selection. “He didn’t know her in 2002 and adamantly has denied that. And the jury, by their verdict, they didn’t imagine her — and she or he was not credible.”

Sokola’s lawyer, Lindsay Goldbrum, stated that a person who was pals with Kaja earlier than the 2006 incident might have testified that the previous mannequin had identified Weinstein previous to that point as effectively.

“Sadly, due to prison process legal guidelines and guidelines concerning rumour, they weren’t capable of name her as a witness, though she was keen to testify on Kaja’s behalf. And in order that’s one of many unlucky items of the prison justice system, is that juries don’t ever get to listen to your entire story,” Goldbrum stated. “The truth that there could not have been bodily written proof of the truth that Harvey Weinstein assaulted Kaja in 2002 doesn’t imply it didn’t occur. This occasion was an in-person interplay between two people from 23 years in the past. Do we actually anticipate there to be a mountain of written and photographic proof? No, I feel that many people have interactions each day that there could be no written document of, and so I don’t suppose it’s indicative of something.”

Though Weinstein was acquitted of the cost associated to Sokola, he was convicted of 1 rely of committing a prison sexual act within the first diploma, primarily based on allegations by former TV manufacturing assistant Miriam Haley. The choose declared a mistrial within the rape case involving Jessica Mann.

“I hoped for one thing else, but it surely nonetheless didn’t change the entire state of affairs for me — as a result of the entire level is to place this man in jail,” Sokola stated. “It’s not my story. I’m not on trial. It’s not about me. It’s about him and him being accountable for what he did.”

Exterior the courthouse, following the declaration of a mistrial on Weinstein’s remaining rely, Aidala referenced Sokola, who had made an announcement the day before today concerning the preliminary partial verdict. He criticized her response, saying she “took some type of a victory lap after 12 jurors stated, ‘We don’t imagine you.’” Aidala additionally claimed that Sokola’s case had obtained the jury’s “quickest and quickest verdict,” citing conversations with a number of jurors.

“It simply reveals you the way actually bastardized the entire MeToo motion has turn into now,” Aidala stated. “She comes right here and says, ‘It’s an important victory,’ when 12 folks instructed her, ‘You lied.’”

Goldbrum described Aidala’s feedback as “attention-grabbing,” noting that they have been “not constant” with what their staff had heard concerning the jury’s deliberations concerning Kaja.

“I feel that he has an incentive to say what he has to say about Kaja, as Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer,” Goldbrum stated. “I additionally suppose that he’s distorting what is actually the jury’s verdict, which isn’t that they don’t imagine her. It’s not that they suppose she lied. The usual is fact past an affordable doubt. It’s not, she’s mendacity or she’s telling the reality. It’s whether or not or not there may be affordable doubt. That’s the hardest customary to fulfill — the toughest threshold to cross — and that’s the means it’s for a purpose, proper?”

Weinstein now faces as much as 25 years in jail following his conviction in Haley’s case. Prosecutors have stated they’re ready to retry him on the rape cost, which carries a possible sentence of as much as 4 years.

Sokola had a message for Weinstein and his authorized staff: “I wish to inform them that we received. We received. Don’t attempt to break up ladies aside and tear them down individually, as a result of that’s what they have been attempting to do within the courthouse all through the trial — and it didn’t succeed.”