AG suit cites death threats by Harv
ACCUSED SEXUAL predator Harvey Weinstein hired “wing women” to facilitate his abusive conquests and bragged about having Secret Service contacts who could run interference, according to a lawsuit by the state’s attorney general.
Weinstein, his brother Robert, and their film company were all complicit in the “vicious and exploitative mistreatment of company employees,” said Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who filed a civil rights lawsuit Sunday against the Weinstein Co. that derailed a $500 million deal to sell the agency, according to a report. Schneiderman had been concerned that the sale would go through without Weinstein’s victims having a chance to be properly compensated.
The suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, included an array of new allegations regarding Weinstein’s depraved behavior.
The disgraced movie mogul has been accused by nearly 100 women of sexual harassment, bullying or rape.
He has apologized but denied that any encounter was nonconsensual.
In the new suit, Weinstein is accused of telling several employees, “I will kill you,” “I will kill your family” and “You don’t know what I can do.”
Weinstein even touted his connections to powerful political figures, and bragged about Secret Service contacts that “could take care of problems.”
Schneiderman said the lawsuit was the result of an ongoing fourmonth investigation, which includes interviews with multiple company employees, executives and victims of Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct.
The AG said his investigation also included an exhaustive review of company records and emails.
According to the lawsuit, Weinstein’s company employed a group of women whose primary job was to accompany Weinstein to events and to “facilitate his sexual conquests.”
“Female Weinstein employees are essentially used to facilitate his sexual conquests of vulnerable women who hope he will get them work,” said one executive, also a woman, according to the suit. In a statement Sunday, Weinstein’s attorney Ben Brafman said that “while Mr. Weinstein’s behavior was not without fault, there certainly was no criminality, and at the end of the inquiry it will be clear that Harvey Weinstein promoted more women to key executive positions than any other industry leader, and there was zero discrimination at either Miramax or (the Weinstein Co.).”
Weinstein’s drivers in Los Angeles and New York were required to keep condoms and erectile dysfunction injections in the car at all times, papers charge.
Despite many human resources complaints, the company did nothing to protect its employees or curb Weinstein’s misconduct, the lawsuit said.