A little over one year after she first made allegations against the disgraced producer, TMZ reports that actress Paz de la Huerta is suing Harvey Weinstein on two acts of sexual assault. The actress’s attorney, Aaron Filler, told TMZ that he filed a lawsuit on Monday. De la Huerta is suing Weinstein for assault, sexual battery, and emotional distress.
According to the suit, per TMZ, de la Huerta claims the first alleged assault took place on December 7, 2010, when she met Weinstein at a movie premiere in New York. He offered to give her a ride home, then the pair went into her apartment to discuss business. She claims that once they were inside her home, he propositioned her, making threats against her career if she didn’t have sex with him. He then allegedly raped her, the suit claims.
The second alleged assault took place weeks later, on December 23. The actress claims that Weinstein called her and said he would be waiting outside her apartment building when she got home. Per the suit, de la Huerta claims she was afraid and depressed, and drank heavily before confronting him. She claims that Weinstein was there when she arrived, “hushed her” in the lobby, TMZ notes, then went with her into her apartment. From there, the suit claims, he “again forced himself on [her] by performing unconsented vaginal intercourse through overpowering physical force.”
They allegedly saw each other again in 2011, at his room at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, per the suit. Weinstein, wearing a bathrobe, exposed himself to her, then allegedly asked her to have a threesome with him and a naked woman in his room. De la Huerta declined and left.
In the suit, according to TMZ, she claims that Weinstein reacted by having her fired from the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, which might have cost her $55 million in earnings over the course of her career. (It was reported at the time that de la Huerta’s contract with the show was not renewed for Season 3 in 2012.) She is including the Four Seasons and the now-defunct Weinstein Company in her suit.
When asked for comment, Weinstein lawyer Benjamin Brafman gave Vanity Fair the following statement: “It is our understanding that the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office carefully reviewed Ms. de la Huerta’s claims of sexual assault by Mr. Weinstein many months ago, and made a conscious decision to reject her as a complainant for obvious reasons. We also believe that her newly minted version of events, including her new California claims, are equally preposterous and, unfortunately, the product of an unstable personality with a vivid imagination.”
De la Huerta first went public with these allegations in a 2017 interview with V.F. She said the alleged assaults depressed her and caused her to drink excessively.
“I was very traumatized,” she said. “I don’t think I was taking very good care of myself. What happened with Harvey left me scarred for many years. I felt so disgusted by it, with myself . . . I became a little self-destructive. It was really hard for me to deal, to cope.”
At the time the story was published, a spokeswoman for Weinstein said the producer “unequivocally denied” the allegations.
Since October 2017, dozens of women have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct. The disgraced producer is currently dealing with several lawsuits stemming from his industry downfall, the most high-profile of which is a case brought on by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who has indicted Weinstein on several sex-crime charges; Weinstein has denied all claims of nonconsensual sex.
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