On film, Weinstein ‘puts hand up woman’s dress and says: Let me have a part of you’
ONE of Harvey Weinstein’s accusers released a video yesterday taken at meeting in which she claims he reached under the table and up her dress.
Melissa Thompson recorded the footage on her laptop at the Weinstein Co offices in New York in September 2011 as she was trying to pitch her tech start-up to him.
The video shows Weinstein stroking Miss Thompson’s shoulder repeatedly and rubbing her back as they hug. Miss Thompson also claims Weinstein groped her groin just out of the view of the camera as he says: ‘Let me have a little part of you.’
She has made her allegations in a class action civil lawsuit which names Weinstein’s former production company Miramax, the Walt Disney Co and Weinstein himself as defendants. She claims that, a few hours after the meeting, Weinstein raped her at a hotel – an allegation he has denied.
Miss Thompson recorded the footage because she wanted to demonstrate her firm’s video and analytics service. It was the pair’s first formal encounter.
She went to the Weinstein Co offices expecting to meet the marketing team but Weinstein came into the office, saying ‘Don’t interrupt’ to staff as he locked the door.
The video, which was released to Sky
‘I felt trapped. He cornered me’
News, shows Miss Thompson, who was 28 at the time, sitting next to Weinstein, who was 59, inches from the camera. Weinstein sits down and asks: ‘ So am I allowed to flirt with you?’
Miss Thompson appears to be caught off guard and says: ‘Ummm we’ll see, a little bit.’ She told Sky News that she tried to ‘volley a bit with him’ to save face because she did not want to ruin the meeting.
But at one point Weinstein’s eyes became ‘dark’ and his face changed so that he ‘looked like a predator’, she said. During one interaction, Miss Thompson says: ‘Data’s so hot, right?’, to which Weinstein replies: ‘It is. You’re hot.’
In the footage, Miss Thompson looks uncomfortable and looks away at the moment she claims Weinstein was groping her groin. On the video he says: ‘Let me have a little part of you. Give it to me.’
Asked by Sky journalist Hannah Furness if she thought she was flirting with him, Miss Thompson said she felt Weinstein was playing ‘cat-and-mouse’ to ‘see how far he could push me so that he could gauge my vulnerabilities’. She said: ‘I don’t think I purposely encouraged him.’ At the end of the meeting Miss Thompson and Weinstein arranged to meet at the Tribeca Grand Hotel at 5.30pm that day. According to Miss Thompson’s lawsuit, Weinstein asked her to visit his room. He allegedly pushed her on to the bed and raped her. As well as the civil lawsuit, Weinstein, 66, faces criminal charges that could see him jailed for life, including predatory sexual assault and rape. He denies all non-consensual sexual contact. Weinstein’s lawyer Ben Brafman said several respected journalists had seen the entire video and it showed there was ‘nothing forceful’.
‘Anything short of that is intended to make Mr Weinstein appear inappropriate, and even exploitative,’ he said.