LOS ANGELES — As soon as the barrage of phone calls from reporters and friends start rolling in, Katherine Kendall grabs her pooch Bella and goes for a quick walk around the block. 

“It definitely shakes me up more than I could ever anticipate,” Kendall told Spectrum News 1. 

One of the first women to accuse movie producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct, Kendall was prepared for an eventful day. What she didn’t predict was just how eventful it would be. 

MORE ON THE WEINSTEIN CASE:

Just hours after Weinstein slid into a Manhattan courtroom for the start of his criminal trial, the Hollywood producer was hit with new sexual assault charges in Los Angeles on Monday, sending the media  — and many of his accusers — into a frenzy. 

“Any time something happens with Weinstein in the news it sends a shock to my system,” she said. 

Kendall was a young actress when in 1993 she said Weinstein lured her to what she thought would be a work discussion. At one point, she said, he took off his clothes and demanded a massage.

“He came out completely naked and I know that in that moment as he sort of came out of the bathroom and started coming for me that I thought I was going to be raped,” she said. “I thought that was it.”

Kendall said she managed to escape by the skin of her teeth. But the trauma of that night comes back every time she hears of yet another accuser.

“When I hear about people being raped by him, I believe it because I could see it happen before my eyes,” she said.

Weinstein and his legal team deny that any of the acts he’s accused of were non-consensual. Prosecutors in Los Angeles charged Weinstein with raping one woman and sexually assaulting another in separate incidents over a two-day period in 2013.

If convicted, he faces up to 28 years in prison.

The Los Angeles County district attorney, Jackie Lacey, said she believed “the evidence will show that the defendant used his power and influence to gain access to his victims and then committed violent acts against them.”

For Kendall and her fellow accusers it’s a moment of validation years in the making.  

“We all are really hoping justice will be served because because we all know what we experienced with this guy. It being recognized by the court somehow means it’s being recognized by everyone,” she said. 

Jury selection in the New York case is expected to begin Tuesday and last for two weeks, followed by arguments and testimony scheduled to last another eight weeks.