‘Weinstein hired spies to silence accusers’
LOS ANGELES: Harvey Weinstein hired journalists and highly trained ex-spies and military personnel who used fake identities to try to stop accusers from going public with sexual misconduct claims against him, The New Yorker reported on Monday.
The news came as the Television Academy, which hands out Emmy Awards, was said to have expelled Weinstein “for life”, following a similar move by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which gives out the Oscars.
Among the private security agencies hired by Weinstein starting around autumn last year, the magazine said, was Black Cube, which is largely run by former officers of Israeli intelligence agencies, including Mossad. Another was corporate intelligence giant Kroll.
Two Black Cube private eyes met actress Rose McGowan, before she accused Weinstein of raping her, to obtain information.
One of the investigators secretly recorded at least four meetings with McGowan while pretending to be a women’s rights advocates, said the magazine.
The spy used a different identity to meet a journalist while claiming to have an accusation against Weinstein to learn which women were talking to the media.
Weinstein and the private eyes also used journalists to extract details from women who were making claims against him.
During his year-long effort, Weinstein and his team would collect information on dozens of people, compiling psychological profiles with their personal or sexual histories to contradict, discredit or intimidate his targets.
The New Yorker said Weinstein sought the assistance of exemployees from his movie enterprises to help in his efforts collecting names and placing calls.
Investigations also sometimes went through Weinstein’s lawyers, according to the magazine. Among them was David Boies.
The New Yorker said Boies had signed a contract demanding that Black Cube seek to uncover information to stop the publication of a New York Times story about Weinstein’s sexual abuse at the same time his firm was also representing the Times in a libel case. AFP