Weinstein ‘rape victim’ sent him loving emails
HARVEY Weinstein’s lawyers released a string of intimate emails sent to him by one of his accusers yesterday in an attempt to have the case against him dismissed.
One message, sent four years after the movie mogul allegedly raped her, read: ‘I love you but hate feeling like a booty call’, an expression used to reference invitations to engage in casual sex.
In other messages the woman praised Weinstein’s ‘beautiful eyes’ and wrote: ‘Call me any time, always good to hear your voice.’ She signed off one email: ‘Miss you big guy.’
The woman sent the ‘I love you’ message in 2017 after staying in regular contact with Weinstein, 66, despite allegedly being raped by him in 2013.
The emails appear in a 159-page submission by his lawyers requesting that the ‘flawed’ case against him be dismissed.
They say the emails show there was a ‘long-term, consensual, intimate relationship’ between Weinstein and the woman, who is identified as CW-1.
Weinstein, who has split from his British wife Georgina Chapman, is charged with six counts by prosecutors in New York – including predatory sexual assault, criminal sexual act and rape in the first and third degrees – that could see him jailed for life if convicted.
Outside the criminal case some 80 women including Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow have claimed he abused them over a 30-year period when he ran film companies Miramax and The Weinstein Co.
The court document is the most robust rebuttal so far from Weinstein. It does not contain the full email exchanges and certain details have been redacted.
The first email submitted is from April 2013, a month after the alleged rape, and CW-1 says to Weinstein: ‘It would be great to see you again and catch up!’ Four days later she wrote: ‘It would mean a lot if we could catch up over a drink.’ In July they once again tried to meet up and she wrote: ‘Let’s get together!’ In another email she wrote to him saying she had changed her number, writing: ‘Call me any time, always good to hear your voice’.
In November 2013 another email said: ‘I was so happy you saw me today. Very honoured.’
The warm tone continued the following January when the woman wrote: ‘You’re the one who makes it look good with your smile and your beautiful eyes!!’ Other emails sent that year include one which reads: ‘There is no one else I would enjoy catching up with that understands me quite like you.’
The final email, from February 2017, reads: ‘I love you, always do. But hate feeling like a booty call.’
In the court filing Weinstein rejects claims by the two other women who have formally accused him – Lucia Evans, a former actress, and Mimi Haleyi, a former Weinstein Co production assistant.
The filing also claims the prosecution is partly a result of ‘outside pressure and political influences’ such as the MeToo movement.