HARV’S LAWYER A LIAR –SuIT
Pretended to be victim advocate, Tech exec claims
THE HIGH-POWERED criminal defense attorney repping Harvey Weinstein against rape charges deceived at least three of the Hollywood horndog’s sex-assault accusers — including one woman who says she videotaped him pawing her at a business meeting — by claiming his firm wanted to represent them against Weinstein, a new lawsuit charges.
Tech startup executive Melissa Thompson made the bombshell accusation in a class-action lawsuit filed Friday in Manhattan Federal Court, saying an Italian-born diplomat who once played matchmaker for President Trump urged her to contact lawyer Ben Brafman because the legal eagle planned on representing the movie mogul’s victims.
In reality, Brafman was working for the disgraced producer and trying to glean information, according to the lawsuit.
Weinstein instructed Brafman’s firm “to obtain evidence victims had of his wrongdoing, including from Plaintiff Melissa Thompson, using deceptive tactics,” the lawsuit says.
Thompson said in the lawsuit that Weinstein raped her in the Tribeca Grand Hotel in 2011 after he lured her to a room to discuss her company’s video broadcast technology.
One of the few people she told at the time was her friend Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agency executive who introduced Trump to his wife, Melania, and was pals with Bill and Hillary Clinton.
After The New York Times and The New Yorker reported last fall that dozens of women had accused Weinstein of being a serial sexual predator, Zampolli called Thompson.
During the Oct. 13, 2017, conversation, Zampolli urged her and two other women to contact Brafman’s office “under the guise that Brafman was representing several female victims against Weinstein and would represent them,” the lawsuit says.
Zampolli connected Thompson with Alex Spiro, then an attorney at Brafman’s firm, according to the lawsuit. Thompson shared video with Spiro, taken with her laptop’s camera, of Weinstein making advances on her, the lawsuit says.
A spokeswoman for Thompson’s law firm Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP said there were no plans to release the tape.
Thompson also said she discussed legal strategies with Spiro and sent emails to his account at Brafman’s law firm. Under Spiro’s direction, she retained Judd Grossman, a lawyer at a different firm, but the contract she inked indicated that Spiro would act as outside counsel, according to the lawsuit.
Thompson says she was blindsided two weeks later when she read in the news that Brafman was repping Weinstein as criminal investigations into his bad behavior began.
“Thompson immediately felt ill and fearful,” the lawsuit says. “She had shared important evidence against Weinstein with the very law firm who represented Weinstein—unbeknownst to her.”
Spiro denied Thompson’s allegations. “I never have and I never would represent Harvey Weinstein,” he said in a statement.
“I left the Brafman firm well before Brafman ever represented Weinstein, and, in fact, I represent one of the key victims, but Ms. Thompson has never been a client.”
Brafman also said in a statement that Thompson’s timeline didn’t add up since Spiro left his firm in September 2017.
“To the extent he spoke with or met with any of these women, he did so on his own time after he had left this firm and was already employed by [law firm] Quinn Emanuel,” Brafman said.
Brafman also said that Thompson was never a client of the firm.
Weinstein was indicted Wednesday in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges that he raped and sexually assaulted two women. Brafman, who was at his side, has said that the encounters with the women were consensual.
The class-action lawsuit names Weinstein, his brother, Bob, and several members of The Weinstein Co.’s board of directors as defendants. It accuses them of conspiring to protect and enable Harvey Weinstein’s predatory behavior.