Former media mogul Harvey Weinstein has been accused of a lot of things, but the most recent allegation given during testimony at his trial, is raising a few eyebrows.
Page Six reported that Miriam “Mimi” Haleyi, a former production assistant for “Project Runway,” took the stand on Monday to testify against Weinstein during his rape trial. Haleyi claimed that Weinstein forced himself on her at his Soho apartment in 2006, ripped out her tampon, and forcibly performed oral sex on her.
Haleyi had accepted an invitation to attend the premiere of “Clerks II” with Weinstein, she said on the stand. A driver was sent to pick her up and she arrived back at his apartment.
“He greeted me, he invited me in. Asked me if I wanted anything to drink and I believe the television was on and we were just having a normal exchange and sat down on the sofa,” Haleyi said on the stand, according to Page Six.
She said Weinstein then started to kiss and fondle her on the couch.
“I got up from the sofa, and I said, ‘Oh, no, no, no.’ I just kind of tried to reject him and push him away,” she continued. “He would just pull me back and keep kissing and fondling me, and I got up and I tried to walk away from him.”
She said she tried to get away from him at this point but he kept pulling her back to him.
“He was coming toward me physically and I was backed into a bedroom that was on the corner of that open space area,” she said on the witness stand. “I walked backwards because he was pushing me with his body until I got to the bed and I fell backwards onto the bed and I tried to get up and he pushed me down.”
Haleyi said she kept telling Weinstein: “No, no. I don’t want this to happen. This is not going to happen, I am on my period.”
Haleyi cried on the stand as she claimed Weinstein kept pushing her back down on the bed.
“He pushed me down. He held me down. He held my arms to stay like that. I said, ‘No, no,’” she said.
She then claimed she realized that she was going to be raped.
“I couldn’t even get away from him at all — let alone out of the apartment. Ultimately, after a while I just checked out,” she claimed. “He held me down on the bed and he forced himself on me orally. I was on my period. I had a tampon in there. I was mortified … He forced himself on me orally, he put his mouth on my vagina.”
“I kept trying to tell him, ‘No, don’t go there and don’t do that. I’m on my period. I have a tampon in.’ It was as if he didn’t believe me and he said something like, ‘Where is it, then?’ like that and he literally pulled my tampon out,” she added.
She next claimed she “just checked out” and didn’t “remember much” except leaving the apartment and looking for the driver, who was no longer downstairs.
She also said that during an earlier encounter with Weinstein she left feeling “humiliated” when he asked if she knew how to give massages and if she could give him one.
Weinstein has been charged with five counts of rape and sexual assault and is facing a life sentence.