‘WEINSTEIN CONDEMNED BY VIGILANTES’
Oscar winner Oliver Stone says movie mogul has been judged prematurely
BUSAN launched investigations, following the publication of an avalanche of claims that go back decades.
But yesterday, Stone said he believed the industry and the public were prematurely judging Weinstein.
“I’m a believer in ‘you wait till this thing gets to a trial’,” he said in this South Korean city, where he is heading a jury at an international film festival.
“If he broke the law, it will come out. I believe that a man shouldn’t be condemned by a vigilante system.”
Stone’s remarks came a day after American actress Rose McGowan became the fourth woman to accuse Weinstein of raping her on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Weinstein was seen in public for the first time in days when paparazzi descended upon him as he left his daughter ’s home in Los Angeles.
“Guys, I’m not doing okay, but I’m trying,” he said in a video obtained by ABC.
“I got to get help. You know what, we all make mistakes.”
As he climbed into an oversized sports utility vehicle, he said he hoped people would give him “a second chance”.
A spokesman for the New York Police Department confirmed it was investigating a 2004 case.
The New York Daily News reported that the case involved aspiring actress Lucia Evans, who earlier told the New Yorker magazine that Weinstein had forced her to perform oral sex on him.
And Scotland Yard said the Metropolitan Police were investigating “an allegation of sexual assault by Merseyside police”.
The Daily Telegraph said the case involved an actress understood to be living in Liverpool.
McGowan also berated Amazon chief executive officer Jeff Bezos on Thursday, claiming she told Amazon Studios chief Roy Price that Weinstein had raped her, but was ignored.
“Over and over I said it. He said it hadn’t been proven. I said I was the proof,” she wrote.
Amazon Studios later said Price — who had also been accused of sexual harassment by television producer Isa Hackett — was “on leave of absence effective immediately”. AFP