NEW YORK: Harvey Weinstein was accused in a civil court filing Wednesday of forcing a 16-year-old Polish model to touch his penis, subjecting her to years of harassment and emotional abuse and blocking her from a successful acting career as payback for refusing his advances.
The accuser, identified as Jane Doe, alleges that Weinstein assaulted her at his New York City apartment in 2002, just days after they’d met at an event involving her modeling agency.
Doe alleges the movie mogul promised to take her to lunch to discuss her career, but instead took her to his empty SoHo apartment and “aggressively and threateningly” demanded sex.
Weinstein instructed Doe to take off her clothes and intimated that she’d never work as an actress unless she gave in to his demands, according to the filing, the latest revelation in a lawsuit alleging Weinstein’s movie studio board enabled his behavior.
“Terrified and struggling to hold back tears, Jane Doe said she would not and resisted his demands,” the filing states. “Jane Doe was a virgin, and had no intention or understanding when she agreed to a business lunch that she would be put in this alarming position.”
Weinstein’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, called the allegations “preposterous.” Weinstein denies all allegations of nonconsensual sex.
“Eventually, just as others have been exposed to be liars, this uncorroborated allegation that is almost 20 years old will be shown to be patently false,” Brafman said.
A lawyer representing the movie studio, The Weinstein Company, declined to comment.
Dozens of women have accused Weinstein of wrongdoing.
Articles published a year ago in The New York Times and The New Yorker detailing his alleged behavior helped spark the #MeToo movement.
Jane Doe’s allegations were contained in a lawsuit involving 10 named plaintiffs, including a woman who released a video in September that shows Weinstein boldly propositioning her during a 2011 business meeting hours before she says he raped her in a hotel room.
“Jane Doe’s decision to join the lawsuit is a brave one given how young she was when Harvey Weinstein attacked her,” her lawyer, Elizabeth Fegan, said.
Soon after the alleged assault, Weinstein started calling and texting Jane Doe every two weeks, the court filing said. Each time, the filing said, he made clear that he was the only person who could help her become an actress.
A few years later, when Doe said she was dating a wealthy man, Weinstein got possessive and chastised her for being unavailable for him sexually, the filing said. One time, the filing said, he showed up at her building and tried to get access to her room, but security refused to let him up.
In another encounter described in the filing, Weinstein blurted out his sexual attraction to Christina Aguilera, who was being shown on a television, and then allegedly unzipped his pants and touched his penis.
Jane Doe first froze, and then fled the office,” the filing said.
Weinstein is also facing criminal charges involving allegations that he raped an unidentified woman in his Manhattan hotel room in 2013 and performed a forcible sex act on a different woman in 2006.
That case was recently roiled by back-to-back allegations that a New York City police detective acted improperly.
Prosecutors dropped a criminal charge involving a third woman after evidence surfaced that Det. Nicholas DiGaudio coached a witness to keep quiet when she raised doubts about the veracity of the allegation.
Days later, prosecutors revealed that DiGaudio allegedly urged the 2013 rape accuser to delete material from her cellphones before she handed them over to prosecutors. The woman didn’t delete any information and instead asked a lawyer for advice, prosecutors said.
Brafman has argued that the 2013 rape allegation is contradicted by warm emails the accuser sent Weinstein after the date of the alleged attack. The lawyer says they show an intimate, consensual relationship.
The amended civil complaint containing Jane Doe’s allegations was filed on the last day for lawyers to revise the lawsuit. A judge had given them until Oct. 31 after expressing skepticism about the strength of their allegations that the studio board conspired to cover-up Weinstein’s misdeeds by intimidating accusers.
Fegan said Wednesday’s 250-page filing makes clear that the studio’s decision-makers knew Weinstein was a sexual predator but “were making too much money and having too much fun to do anything about it.”
“Now they will answer for it,” she said.
Lawsuit alleges Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted 16-year-old girl
Lawsuit alleges Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted 16-year-old girl
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
TORONTO: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Sunday his country has no intention of pursuing a free trade deal with China. He was responding to US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 100 percent tariff on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with a trade deal with Beijing.
Carney said his recent agreement with China merely cuts tariffs on a few sectors that were recently hit with tariffs.
Trump claims otherwise, posting that “China is successfully and completely taking over the once Great Country of Canada. So sad to see it happen. I only hope they leave Ice Hockey alone! President DJT”
The prime minister said under the free trade agreement with the US and Mexico there are commitments not to pursue free trade agreements with nonmarket economies without prior notification.
“We have no intention of doing that with China or any other nonmarket economy,” Carney said. “What we have done with China is to rectify some issues that developed in the last couple of years.”
In 2024, Canada mirrored the United States by putting a 100 percent tariff on electric vehicles from Beijing and a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum. China had responded by imposing 100 percent import taxes on Canadian canola oil and meal and 25 percent on pork and seafood.
Breaking with the United States this month during a visit to China, Carney cut its 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on those Canadian products.
Carney has said there would be an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports coming into Canada at a tariff rate of 6.1 percent, growing to about 70,000 over five years. He noted there was no cap before 2024. He also has said the initial cap on Chinese EV imports was about 3 percent of the 1.8 million vehicles sold in Canada annually and that, in exchange, China is expected to begin investing in the Canadian auto industry within three years.
Trump posted a video Sunday in which the chief executive of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association warns there will be no Canadian auto industry without US access, while noting the Canadian market alone is too small to justify large scale manufacturing from China.
“A MUST WATCH. Canada is systematically destroying itself. The China deal is a disaster for them. Will go down as one of the worst deals, of any kind, in history. All their businesses are moving to the USA. I want to see Canada SURVIVE AND THRIVE! President DJT,” Trump posted on social media.
Trump’s post on Saturday said that if Carney “thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken.”
“We can’t let Canada become an opening that the Chinese pour their cheap goods into the U.S,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We have a , but based off — based on that, which is going to be renegotiated this summer, and I’m not sure what Prime Minister Carney is doing here, other than trying to virtue-signal to his globalist friends at Davos.”
Trump’s threat came amid an escalating war of words with Carney as the Republican president’s push to acquire Greenland strained the NATO alliance.
Carney has emerged as a leader of a movement for countries to find ways to link up and counter the US under Trump. Speaking in Davos before Trump, Carney said, “Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu” and he warned about coercion by great powers — without mentioning Trump’s name. The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks, upstaging Trump at the World Economic Forum.
Trump’s push to acquire Greenland has come after he has repeatedly needled Canada over its sovereignty and suggested it also be absorbed into the United States as a 51st state. He posted an altered image on social media this week showing a map of the United States that included Canada, Venezuela, Greenland and Cuba as part of its territory.
