Harvey Weinstein’s Defense Team Pushes Accuser Kaja Sokola on Diary and Career Aspirations

In Tuesday’s cross examination of Kaja Sokola, one of the three accusers in the trial against Harvey Weinstein, the former mogul’s defense team sought to use a journal she had kept in 2015 against her. 

The appearance of the journal, which Sokola said was related to treatment she had undergone for alcohol abuse and which was brought forward by her sister from Poland after a subpoena was issued against her, led to Sokola calling its unveiling “very inappropriate” and “unethical.”

“I’m not on trial here!” Sokola said, raising her voice.  

“I’m wondering how this got into your possession,” she said, adding that it had been in Poland. “I haven’t seen these in many, many years.” 

While he called it “intrusive,” Judge Curtis Farber allowed the use of the journal, which had been obtained by the defense team, in limited scope, after a morning and post-lunch discussion as well as repeated objections from prosecutors and Sokola herself. Sokola was questioned about the fact that in a chart listing people that had wronged her as well as the related action, she had listed Weinstein’s name and wrote that he had promised to help her but did not, and did not list any sexual assault. 

Sokola testified that was correct and was cut off from answering further as she raised her voice.  

Sokola had earlier testified that she first met Weinstein at 16 years old while working as a model in New York.

The charged interaction with Weinstein is alleged to have taken place in 2006, after a lunch meeting with Weinstein and Sokola’s sister at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. Sokola, who was then 19 years old, said she had arranged the meeting because she wanted her sister to meet with Weinstein so she could prove to her that she had a possible career as an actor. After a brief lunch, Sokola said Weinstein asked her to come up to a hotel room to see a script and then forcibly held her down on the bed and performed oral sex on her.

She is one of three complaining witnesses in the case, and the second to testify, after Miriam Haley, who alleges he forced oral sex on her at his apartment in 2006, and from aspiring actress Jessica Mann, who alleges she was raped by Weinstein in 2013 in a Manhattan hotel.

Sokola also testified to a sexual encounter that occurred with Weinstein when she was 16, when she said he touched her vagina and put her hand on his penis to masturbate. This encounter is not charged in this case, but Sokola entered in civil litigation against Weinstein’s brother Bob Weinstein, Disney and Miramax in 2019 and later won a $3 million settlement related to the incident. 

Weinstein’s defense team had pressed Sokola on the stand Friday, trying to imply that her asylum application had motivated her claims against Weinstein and that she had engaged in consensual sex with Weinstein to further her career. 

Raising her voice and coming to tears on the stand last week, Sokola denied any consensual relationship with Weinstein and said she wanted his honest opinion about whether she had a career as an actress. 

“I met a person who was on top of the world at the time. I didn’t want money. I didn’t want any shortcuts. I wanted him to be honest with it,” Sokola said. “It was not a transactional relationship. I treated him as a professional relationship.”

“He was telling me about my promising movie career,” she said. “Unfortunately he was lying.” 

Michael Cibella, a defense attorney for Weinstein who led the cross-examination, repeatedly pointed to her acting aspirations and interviews she had previously given to NewsNation and Rolling Stone about an earlier incident with Weinstein, where she had not mentioned the charged incident, as well as the fact that she had received a role as an extra on the Nanny Diaries from Weinstein (though the part was cut from the film) and had received a letter of recommendation from a Weinstein associate for the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute after the alleged charged incident had taken place, but had never enrolled. 

On Tuesday, he pointed to reach outs Sokola had made to Weinstein in 2010 and 2011 related to potential scripts and wanting to meet for business opportunities, as well as what he said were discrepancies between her testimony about Weinstein’s use of force during the charged incident. 

Last week, upon questioning from Cibella, Sokola, who fled from her husband in Poland, testified that she was applying for a U visa, which allows victims of crimes who report a crime and cooperate with prosecutors to live and work in the U.S. for up to four years, and that participating in this case could help. 

Cibella also pointed to the fact that Sokola received $475,000 as part of a settlement fund related to the 2016 incident with Weinstein at the end of 2021 or early 2022. Sokola, who had earlier testified that she was in an abusive relationship with her husband in Poland at that time and needed to flee the country, flew to New York around that time. She headed off Cibella’s line of questioning, implying she needed the money to flee and rent the apartment in New York, which costs $11,000 a month. Cibella also pointed to the fact that Sokola had previously spoken out against the fund, which she said was because it released Weinstein from further civil claims, but then reversed course. 

“I flew to New York and I rented this apartment, because I was working two full-time jobs and earning what would be the equivalent of $15,000 a month,” Sokola said.