Ex-model testifying that Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her questioned about private journal

Kaja Sokol arrives at Manhattan criminal court before the start of Harvey Weinstein's trial in New York, on Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (Bing Guan/Pool Photo via AP)

NEW YORK — A former fashion model testifying in Harvey Weinstein ‘s retrial on sexual assault charges was confronted on the stand Tuesday with a private journal in which she wrote about people who sexually abused her, but notably left out the disgraced former Hollywood mogul.

Michael Cibella, a lawyer for Weinstein, noted that the journal by Kaja Sokola names at least two people who had sexually assaulted her. Neither one of them, she acknowledged to the jury in Manhattan, was Weinstein.

Instead, the “Pulp Fiction” producer is mentioned in the writings for altogether different reasons. Under an entry for “Harvey W” Sokola wrote that he was “promising me help,” but “nothing came out of it.”

“The trauma that Harvey Weinstein inflicted on you was that he made promises that he didn’t keep, even as you accused two other men of sexually assaulting you,” Cibella said.

The Polish model, now a 39-year-old psychotherapist, pushed back at the characterization.

“That’s your interpretation and I’ll leave that with you,” Sokola responded from the witness stand. “Harvey made promises he didn’t keep -- and he sexually assaulted me.”

Earlier in the day, Sokola had argued that the journal, which she wrote in Polish in 2015, shouldn’t be discussed in open court at all.

She said the writing has been part of her treatment for substance abuse. One of the steps of the program, she explained, was to list all the people and things with which she held resentment.

“This is very inappropriate,” Sokola pleaded as one of Weinstein’s attorneys began to cite portions of the text to the jury. “Please don’t read that. This is my personal things. I’m not on trial here.”

Judge Curtis Farber assured Sokola that he would only permit limited questioning around the document. He also said he had concerns about the journal’s completeness and authenticity and wondering how defense lawyers had obtained what appeared to be private medical records.

“This might backfire tremendously” for the defense, Farber said at one point, as prosecutors also strongly opposed inclusion of the journal as evidence in the trial. “That’s the risk they’re willing to take.”

Weinstein’s lawyers, in their cross-examination of Sokola that began Friday, have sought to cast Sokola as a wannabe actor who tried to leverage her consensual relations with the former studio boss.

Cibella, to that end, quizzed Sokola on Tuesday about what she told prosecutors during a 2020 interview.

He contended that a prosecutor’s handwritten notes from the meeting don’t include any mention of Weinstein using force or tearing off her clothes, as she’s described the incident to jurors in her testimony.

“Is it a fact that you never made an allegation in 2020 that Mr. Weinstein used force?” Cibella asked.

“That is a lie,” Sokola fired back.

Cibella also questioned Sokola about her communications with Weinstein in the years after she claimed he had sexually assaulted her in 2006.

Among them were phone messages, text messages and emails in which she tried to meet up in person with the co-founder of the production company Miramax or asked him for help on various movie industry opportunities.

Sokola, who is expected to return to the stand on Wednesday, testified last week that Weinstein exploited her dreams of an acting career to subject her to unwanted sexual advances, starting days after they met in 2002, while she was a 16-year-old on a modeling trip to New York.

Some of those allegations are beyond the legal time limit for criminal charges, but Weinstein faces a criminal sex act charge over Sokola’s claim that he forced oral sex on her in 2006.

Prosecutors added the charge to the landmark .MeToo case last year, after an appeals court overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction. The guilty verdict pertained to allegations from two other women, who also have testified or are expected to testify at the retrial.

Weinstein, 73, has pleaded not guilty and denies ever sexually assaulting anyone.

The Associated Press generally does not name people who allege they have been sexually assaulted, but Sokola has given her permission to be identified.

Associated Press reporter Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this story.

Philip Marcelo, The Associated Press