Weinstein accuser paid off young actor
One of Harvey Weinstein’s most prominent accusers settled a claim from a young actor and musician who alleged that she sexually assaulted him in a hotel room when he was under-age.
Asia Argento, an Italian actress and director, became a standard bearer for the #MeToo movement after alleging last October that Weinstein raped her at the Cannes film festival in 1997 when she was 21.
All the while, however, according to legal documents sent anonymously to The New York Times, she was privately contending with own accuser.
Jimmy Bennett got to know Argento at the age of seven while filming The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, a 2004 film that she directed, co-wrote and starred in. She played a drug-addicted prostitute. He played her son.
A decade later the pair had an emotional reunion at a hotel in Los Angeles where Bennett alleges that the actress, whom he had come to view as a mother figure, inflicted a sexual assault on him that was so traumatic it threatened his mental health and damaged his ability to make a living.
In April, after negotiations, Argento agreed to pay Bennett, now 22, US$380,000 over a year and a half and made an initial deposit of US$200,000, according to a letter to her from her lawyer, Carrie Goldberg. The lawyer characterised the money as ‘‘helping Mr Bennett". – The Times