Former production assistant Mimi Haleyi has told Harvey Weinstein's rape trial she tried to fight off the disgraced movie mogul and told him "no, no, no" while he sexually assaulted her.
As one of two women whose allegations led to Weinstein's charges, Haleyi took the witness stand and detailed her claim that he forcibly performed oral sex on her at his New York City apartment in 2006.
"I did reject him, but he insisted. Every time I tried to get off the bed, he would push me back and hold me down," she said on Monday, at times sobbing during her testimony.
Haleyi said she told Weinstein she was menstruating in an attempt to deter him.
The 42-year-old told jurors she thought "I'm being raped" and considered different options. "If I scream rape, will someone hear me?" she wondered.
"I checked out and decided to endure it," she said. "That was the safest thing I could do."
Weinstein, 67, is charged with sexual assaulting Haleyi and raping an aspiring actress in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013. He says any sexual encounters were consensual.
Haleyi also described a second encounter a few weeks after the alleged assault in a Tribeca hotel room where she said she "went numb" as he took her hand, pulled her toward the bed and had intercourse with her.
She said she didn't call the police because she was working in the US on a tourist visa and was scared of Weinstein's power.
"Obviously, Mr Weinstein has a lot more power and resources and connections and so forth. I didn't think I'd stand a chance," she testified.
Last week, Sopranos actor Annabella Sciorra testified that Weinstein overpowered and raped her after barging into her apartment in the mid-1990s.
Haleyi said she met Weinstein while in her 20s at the 2004 London premiere of the Leonardo DiCaprio film The Aviator.
They crossed paths again at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 and, when she expressed interest in working on one of his productions, he invited her to his hotel room and asked for a massage.
She declined, saying she was "extremely humiliated".
"I felt stupid because I was so excited to go see him and he treated me that way," she testified.
More meetings followed, and Weinstein secured Haleyi a job helping on the set of Project Runway, the reality competition show he produced.
She testified that before the alleged assault, Weinstein showed up at her apartment and begged her to join him a trip to Paris for a fashion show.
"At one point, because I just didn't know how to shut it down so to speak ... I said, 'you know you have a terrible reputation with women, I've heard'," Haleyi said.
The then-revered Hollywood honcho "got offended" she said.
"He stepped back and said, 'what have you heard?'"
Asked by prosecutor Meghan Hast if she had any romantic or sexual interest in Weinstein, Haleyi firmly answered: "Not at all, no."
Australian Associated Press
