Defamation Suit Results From Sister's Weinstein Testimony

A lawsuit has emerged from Harvey Weinstein's most recent criminal trial, in which two sisters testified. Kaja Sokola accused the disgraced movie mogul of sexual assault. Ewa Sokola was called as a witness to boost her claims, but ultimately ended up helping the defense, the AP reports. Now, Ewa Sokola is suing Kaja for defamation, alleging in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court that the psychotherapist and ex-model's public remarks amount to libel and are damaging Ewa's reputation and business as a cardiologist in Poland.

Ewa Sokola says that her younger sister has made false statements subjecting her to public hatred, shame, contempt, ridicule, ostracism and disgrace in Wroclaw, Poland. She seeks unspecified damages. In a split verdict in June, Weinstein was convicted of forcibly performing oral sex on film and television production assistant and producer Miriam Haley and acquitted on a charge involving Kaja Sokola's allegations of similar conduct. Both women said they were assaulted in 2006. The judge declared a mistrial on the final charge, that Weinstein raped former actor Jessica Mann, after the jury foreperson declined to deliberate further.

Weinstein has not yet been sentenced as a judge weighs a defense request to throw out the verdict after two jurors told Weinstein's lawyers that other jurors had bullied them into convicting him. Judge Curtis Farber is expected to rule on Jan. 8. Kaja Sokola has said her sister's testimony at Weinstein's state court trial in New York this year undermined her own testimony that he forced oral sex on the 19-year-old at a Manhattan hotel. After the trial, Kaja Sokola criticized her sister's testimony, saying that though she was called as a prosecution witness, she served Weinstein's cause by providing his lawyers with a journal in which she wrote about the men who had sexually assaulted her in her life but did not include Weinstein. According to the lawsuit, Kaja Sokola repeatedly characterized her sister's testimony as a personal betrayal.