Harvey Weinstein Sued for Rape Under Anti-Trafficking Law
An aspiring actress sued Harvey Weinstein in federal court on Friday, claiming that he repeatedly sexually assaulted over the span of nine years.
The plaintiff, identified only as Jane Doe, joins dozens of other women who have pursued litigation against the incarcerated producer. She filed the suit under the federal law against sex trafficking, which other plaintiffs have also used successfully against Weinstein.
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According to the complaint, she met Weinstein at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, when she was 22 years old. The complaint alleges a familiar pattern — she states that Weinstein lured her to his suite with promises of helping her career, only to sexually assault once they were alone.
She states that in their first encounter, she managed to get away after he groped her and tried to take off her clothes. However, on a subsequent occasion Weinstein allegedly groped her and masturbated, and then on a third occasion he allegedly raped her.
The complaint also alleges that Weinstein pursued her to another city, where he again invited her to his hotel room on the promise of speaking about her career. Once there, she alleges that he sexually assaulted her.
The suit states that Weinstein paid for Jane Doe to fly to meet him in Paris, New York, Capri and Venice over the course of the following year, under the pretext that he could introduce her to people who would make her a star.
In 2009, she alleges that Weinstein flew her and her mother to the Sundance Film Festival. There, Weinstein allegedly demanded that Doe have a threesome with him and another woman. She refused and left the festival, according to the suit.
After that, she alleges that she was frozen out of film events and talent agents stopped returning her calls.
According to the suit, she did not communicate with Weinstein again until 2012, when he again invited her to his hotel in Los Angeles. She alleges that Weinstein sexually assaulted her again. The suit also alleges that Weinstein attempted to sexually assault her at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2014, though she was able to escape the room, and that he sexually assaulted her for a final time at his Los Angeles hotel in January 2016.
Weinstein is serving a 23-year sentence for rape and sexual assault at a prison in upstate New York. He is due to appear next Friday for an extradition hearing, as the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office is seeking to try him for three other incidents.
The Jane Doe complaint was filed by attorneys Steven J. Reed and Sarah Bouskila of Norris McLaughlin in New York, and by Bart Dalton and Katarzyna Brozynski of Brozynski & Dalton of Plano, Tex. It does not name the Weinstein Co. or any of its officers or directors as defendants.
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