A few days after Harvey Weinstein's first trial started in 2020, the lawyers talked in private for the first time with a former model. She said he made her have sex.

But the jury did not hear about Kaja Sokola's claim. Prosecutors said they were still looking into the claim when Weinstein was found guilty in February 2020. He was a famous movie boss but became unpopular because of the #MeToo movement. He was found guilty of crimes against other women.

On Wednesday, Sokola started to tell her story to a new group of people in court.

Sokola walked past Weinstein and went to the witness stand in the courtroom. She did not look at him. Weinstein is in court again because a different court said his first trial for rape and sexual assault was not right. So, he is being tried again for those things. The lawyers also added another charge of sexual assault because of what Sokola said happened.

When she started talking about her life before the attack she said happened in 2006, Weinstein looked at her with his hand over his mouth.

Weinstein says he is not guilty. His lawyers say the women agreed to have sex with him because they wanted jobs in movies and on TV. The lawyers also say the women stayed in touch with him for some time after they say he hurt them.

Sokola is 39, born in Poland. She helps people with their problems and writes books. She said she recently started a company that makes films. She took Weinstein to court because people were talking about how he treated women. In 2017, many women said he did bad things, and this helped start the #MeToo movement against bad behavior. Prosecutors said Sokola finally got $3.5 million.

Sokola explained that she was never really interested in modeling; instead, she wanted to be an actress and a writer. However, her mother and sister believed she should enter a modeling competition in Poland when she was 14. She ended up winning a contract with a modeling agency, and soon she had to balance attending middle school with doing photo shoots.

She said the next two years helped her grow up quickly. By 2002, she was 16 and in New York for modeling. She was completely alone, without any family.

Sokola will probably speak again on Thursday. They haven't asked her about Weinstein yet. Prosecutors say she met him on a modeling trip to New York in 2002.

Sokola said in court that after she met Weinstein, he asked her to lunch to talk about her work. But she said he hurt her there. Sokola said he continued to hurt her in similar ways and made her feel bad for many years after that.

The criminal charge is about one time in May 2006. Sokola says Weinstein made her have oral sex in a hotel in New York.

Prosecutors said it happened after Weinstein helped Sokola get a small part in the film “The Nanny Diaries.” He then met her older sister. Sokola wanted to impress her sister.

Her sister, Dr. Ewa Sokola, who is a heart doctor, told the jury on Wednesday that she was happy to know him.

She said the three people met in the hotel and talked about Italian films and Weinstein's heart. Then, he and the model went away from the table.

Kaja Sokola seemed nervous when she came back about 30 minutes later, Dr. Sokola told the jury.

She said she was very surprised when she read about the claim in a magazine more than ten years later.

Weinstein's lawyers can ask Kaja Sokola questions soon. At the start of the trial last month, his lawyer asked why she did not speak earlier. The other lawyers said people were afraid to speak because Weinstein was rich and powerful.

Prosecutors said they started looking into Sokola's claims after her lawyers called the day before Weinstein's first trial. But prosecutors stopped the investigation after he was found guilty and the coronavirus problem appeared.

They started the Sokola investigation again after a court in New York said Weinstein was not guilty.

Weinstein's lawyers tried to stop the court from hearing what Sokola said, but they could not. They said the other lawyers were secretly adding a new problem to the case to make the other women who accused Weinstein seem more believable.

Another woman, Miriam Haley, said in court last week that Weinstein made her have oral sex in 2006.

The Associated Press usually does not say the names of people who say they were sexually attacked. They only say the names if the people say it is okay. Haley, Mann, and Sokola said it was okay.