A prominent Italian model and actress told Los Angeles Police Department detectives on Thursday that Harvey Weinstein raped her at a hotel in 2013.
The woman chose not to reveal her name in fear of retaliation and to shield the privacy of her three children, Los Angeles Times reported. She spoke to detectives for two hours to relay the details of the assault, becoming the sixth woman to accuse the Hollywood mogul of forcible sex acts and rape.
The 38-year-old woman said that she met Weinstein briefly at the 8th annual Los Angeles, Italia Film, Fashion and Art Fest in February 2013. After the event, Weinstein showed up unannounced at her hotel lobby around midnight. The actress was surprised because she did not tell him where she was staying. Weinstein asked to come up to her room and she declined, offering to come downstairs instead. Moments later Weinstein was knocking on her door.
“He … bullied his way into my hotel room, saying, ‘I’m not going to [have sex with] you, I just want to talk,’” the actress told Los Angeles Times. “Once inside, he asked me questions about myself, but soon became very aggressive and demanding and kept asking to see me naked.”
Weinstein proceeded to brag about his power in Hollywood and told her to not resist him. The actress cried, begged him to go away and tried to show him pictures of her three children and her ailing mother, who was going through chemotherapy at the time.
“He grabbed me by the hair and forced me to do something I did not want to do,” she said. “He then dragged me to the bathroom and forcibly raped me.”
On his way out, Weinstein said she was beautiful and that she could work in Hollywood.
“He acted like nothing happened,” the actress said. “I barely knew this man. It was the most demeaning thing ever done to me by far. It sickens me still. … He made me feel like an object, like nothing, with all his power.”
In California, there is a law that prevents people from suing people for rape in the event that the attack occurred more than 10 years ago. The alleged assault on the Italian actress occurred less than 10 years ago, so the lawsuit appears to be of particular concern for Weinstein.
Weinstein has denied allegations of non-consensual sex, according to his representative.
“I can’t respond to some anonymous complaint,” she said in response to the Italian actress’s accusation.
Weinstein is under investigation for two sex crimes allegations in New York and three more in London.
The movie mogul was seen as one of the most powerful men in Hollywood for decades and his studio churned out scores of Oscar-winning movies. But two articles, one in the New York Times and one in the New Yorker, blew open a hole in his public image, with dozens of women accusing him of sexually assaulting them over the course of three decades.
Weinstein has settled lawsuits with at least eight women, according to the New York Times.
From NTD.tv
