Weinstein Co. under police scanner

NY attorney general Eric Schneiderman announced a civil rights investigation

Albany, New York: State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced a civil rights investigation on Monday into The Weinstein Co. following sexual harassment and assault allegations against its co-founder, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

As part of the investigation, the prosecutor’s office issued a subpoena seeking company records on harassment complaints and legal settlements to determine whether any civil rights and anti-discrimination laws were broken.

“No New Yorker should be forced to walk into a workplace ruled by sexual intimidation, harassment or fear,” said Schneiderman, a Democrat.

“If sexual harassment or discrimination is pervasive at a company, we want to know.”

The New York Citybased company fired Weinstein on October 8 after The New York Times and The New Yorker exposed allegations of sexual assault and harassment spanning decades.

A woman who answered the phone in The Weinstein Co.’s media relations office said the company had no comment on the subpoena or news of the investigation.

One of Weinstein’s former assistants in London, Zelda Perkins, spoke to the Financial Times about what she said was repeated sexual harassment toward her. “Weinstein walked around nude in front of her, asked her to be in the room when he bathed and the producer would often try to pull her into bed when she went No New Yorker should be forced to walk into a workplace ruled by sexual intimidation, harassment or fear

Eric Schneiderman, into his room to wake him up.”

She told the paper she split a £250,000 settlement with another woman who she claimed was sexually assaulted by the producer.

Ms Perkins told the paper that she was required to sign a non-disclosure agreement — a copy of which she was not allowed to keep.

“I want to publicly break my non-disclosure agreement,” she said. “Unless somebody does this there won’t be a debate about how egregious these agreements are and the amount of duress that victims are put under. My entire world fell in because I thought the law was there to protect those who abided by it.” She sought legal advice after a colleague, who she did not name in the story, told her Weinstein sexually assaulted her at the Venice Film Festival in 1998.

Ms Perkins, who had declined comment through her current employer, said the settlement agreement called for Weinstein to undergo counseling and called for a harassment reporting procedure to be set up at Weinstein’s then-company, Miramax.

Emails seeking comment from the Walt Disney Co., which owns Miramax, and Weinstein’s representative Sallie Hofmeister were not immediately returned. Hofmeister has said Weinstein denies all allegations of non-consensual sex. Police in Los Angeles, New York and London are also investigating Harvey Weinstein over allegations of sex abuse.