For Weinstein, a brush with the police, then no charges

For decades the film producer Harvey Weinstein succeeded in hiding from public view complaint after complaint of sexual misconduct against him. But on the evening of March 28, 2015, at arendezvous at the TriBeCa Grand, his longtime pattern of cover-ups was coming to a dramatic end.

Meeting with him at the hotel was Ambra Battilana, a 22-year-old model from Italy, who had reported to the police the night before that Mr. Weinstein had groped her during a business meeting. She was wearing a wire. As Ms. Battilana asked Mr. Weinstein why he had touched her breasts at his office, undercover police officers monitored the exchange, eager to capture his every word.

“Oh, please, I’m sorry, just come on in,” Mr. Weinstein said as he tried to usher her into his hotel room, his tone alternating between threatening and cajoling, according to the recording. “I’m used to that. Come on. Please.”

“You’re used to that?” she replied.

“Yes,” he said, adding, “I won’t do it again.”

The investigation that unfolded over the next two weeks was perhaps the biggest threat ever faced by Mr. Weinstein, one of the most prominent figures in American entertainment. He immediately went on the attack.

As the police and prosecutors investigated the model’s allegations, the movie mogul set in motion a team of top-shelf defense lawyers and publicists to undermine her credibility, according to officials speaking on condition of anonymity. They gathered court records from Italy about a previous sexual assault complaint she had filed and then dropped. Stories questioning her motives popped up in the tabloids with anonymous sources. Mr. Weinstein’s team even enlisted the help of a former Manhattan sex crimes prosecutor turned novelist with influential ties.

In the end, the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., announced he would not press charges. Once the criminal case was closed, Mr. Weinstein silenced Ms. Battilana with a substantial payment.

The case demonstrates how Mr. Weinstein, with ample funds and influence, was able to assemble a counterstrike against the sex crime probe using weapons available to the powerful. It also highlights the challenges such cases pose, even for the vaunted Manhattan district attorney’s office, made famous by the television show “Law & Order.”

Little of what happened in the case emerged before this month, when The New York Times reported claims of rampant sexual harassment and unwanted touching by Mr. Weinstein, and The New Yorker reported sexual assault allegations — as well as the audio recording of the hotel encounter with Ms. Battilana.

Since then, the New York police have begun looking into an actress’s claim that Mr. Weinstein sexually assaulted her in TriBeCa in 2004. On Sunday, the police said detectives were investigating several other new allegations made in recent days.