Harvey Weinstein Accused of Sexual Assault *Update* Sentenced to 23 Years Imprisonment

[Benn98]

Women accuse Morgan Freeman of inappropriate behavior, harassment

By An Phung and Chloe Melas
Updated 11:18 AM EDT, Thu May 24, 2018

(CNN) A young production assistant thought she had landed the job of her dreams when, in the summer of 2015, she started work on "Going In Style," a bank heist comedy starring Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin.

But the job quickly devolved into several months of harassment, she told CNN. She alleges that Freeman subjected her to unwanted touching and comments about her figure and clothing on a near-daily basis. Freeman would rest his hand on her lower back or rub her lower back, she said.

In one incident, she said, Freeman "kept trying to lift up my skirt and asking if I was wearing underwear." He never successfully lifted her skirt, she said -- he would touch it and try to lift it, she would move away, and then he'd try again. Eventually, she said, "Alan [Arkin] made a comment telling him to stop. Morgan got freaked out and didn't know what to say."

Freeman's alleged inappropriate behavior was not limited to that one movie set, according to other sources who spoke to CNN. A woman who was a senior member of the production staff of the movie "Now You See Me" in 2012 told CNN that Freeman sexually harassed her and her female assistant on numerous occasions by making comments about their bodies.

Continued.........

Source: CNN.com

 

[Benn98]

Maybe it's time to change this thread title to 'Sexual Misconduct in Hollywood' as I'm certain more sleazebags will be exposed.

 

[Phuel]

Sleazebag..?

Until there are solid allegations of Morgan drugging and molesting women, or arranging meetings in a suite wearing just a bathrobe ready to intimidate his victims, I’m not convinced he’s a “sleazebag”.

He’s from a generation where a slap on the butt is a playful and friendly gesture, and where comments that are considered “sexual harassment” would have been just boys being boys. His actions may be inappropriate in these prudish and overly-PC times, and rightfully so in some cases because these are different times. But the lynch mob sure are ready with their pitchforks and torches, ready for a witch burning these days.

 

[Benn98]

He’s from a generation where a slap on the butt is a playful and friendly gesture, and where comments that are considered “sexual harassment” would have been just boys being boys. His actions may be inappropriate in these prudish and overly-PC times, and rightfully so in some cases because these are different times. But the lynch mob sure are ready with their pitchforks and torches, ready for a witch burning these days.

Phuel, you perplex me, you really do.
Firstly, the behaviour you're describing is never ok. It wasn't ok 40 or 50 years ago, and it's not ok now. Whichever way you look at it. I'm well aware of how society fuctioned in his era, and how women regarded the actions of men at the time and I can boldly declare that an overwhelming percentage of women wasn't there for it. 'Boys being boys'.....pfft. Guys like Freeman don't get passes just because they're from a different generation. That's bollocks!

 

[Phuel]

^^^ I don’t know either these women nor Morgan.

I don’t know the context of these allegations that he has been accused of, so I'll hold off immediately labeling Morgan as a sleazebag. For all I know, these women and Morgan could have been playfully and harmlessly being flirtatious— talking about workouts and underwear. He may have stepped over the line somewhere in that moment— and the women may have felt uncomfortable but just brushed it off. Until now. Maybe what they didn’t deem as inappropriate then, they’ve been influenced by the current political climate as totally inappropriate now.

Just like you’ve assumed the worst of Morgan, I’m going to assume the worst of the women's allegations. Until I know more.

 

[MissMagAddict]

Report: Weinstein Will Turn Himself in on Sex-Crime Charges

Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul and former film producer, is set to turn himself in on Friday to face charges stemming from “alleged sexual misconduct,” according to the New York Daily News. Weinstein currently faces charges related to at least one accuser, Lucia Evans, who claims Weinstein “forced her to perform oral sex on him in 2004.” The Daily News reports that the “statute of limitations does not apply” in his case due to the “nature of the allegations” against him. A grand jury reviewed evidence in the Weinstein probe weeks ago, the newspaper reported. Weinstein has maintained that he did not participate in non-consensual sexual relations with any of the women who have come forward against him. His attorney, Benjamin Brafman, declined to comment.

source | thedailybeast

 

[MissMagAddict]

Harvey Weinstein to Be Arrested in New York on Sex Assault Charges

Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced movie mogul, is expected to surrender to investigators in Manhattan on Friday and face sexual assault charges after a monthslong inquiry into allegations by numerous women.

The charges follow an avalanche of accusations against him that led women around the world, some of them famous and many of them not, to come forward with accounts of being sexually harassed and assaulted by powerful men.

Those stories spawned the global #MeToo movement, and since then, the ground has shifted beneath men who for years benefited from a code of silence around their predatory behavior.

Mr. Weinstein, 66, who has been accused of sexually abusing and assaulting movie stars and employees of his former namesake company and then paying them or coercing them to stay silent, will face sexual assault charges in connection with the accusations of two women, according to law enforcement officials. One of the women is Lucia Evans, whose account was reported in The New Yorker. Ms. Evans said Mr. Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him during a business meeting in 2004.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office had also been investigating allegations that Mr. Weinstein raped an actress, Paz de la Huerta, in her home in New York City in 2010, as well as allegations by three to five additional victims whose accounts investigators found credible.

Mr. Weinstein, the subject of rumors in media and entertainment circles for years, began facing official inquiries in New York, Los Angeles and London after revelations in The New York Times and The New Yorker about his history of sexually assaulting women and paying or putting pressure on them not to speak out. Three years ago, the Manhattan district attorney’s office decided not to prosecute Mr. Weinstein after an Italian model, Ambra Battilana, accused him of groping her breasts during a meeting in his office.

Mr. Weinstein’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, declined to comment. In the past, he has said that Mr. Weinstein denies any allegations of “nonconsensual sex.”

In the recent inquiry detectives traveled to the United Kingdom and Canada to interview witnesses in the case and investigators were in Los Angeles as recently as late April and early May, several people briefed on the matter have said. Prosecutors have also combed through Mr. Weinstein’s financial records in an effort to uncover any possible improprieties, several people have said.

Federal prosecutors have also been investigating whether Mr. Weinstein’s abusive conduct violated federal stalking laws and examined the movie producer’s finances, several people with knowledge of that inquiry have said.

The office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., convened what is known as an investigatory grand jury to examine the accusations.

In the course of the investigation, prosecutors created what amounted to an elaborate timeline of Mr. Weinstein’s whereabouts in an effort to take advantage of a section of New York State law that says the clock stops ticking toward the statute of limitations when a defendant is continuously outside the state. Investigators compiled instances in which Mr. Weinstein left New York to determine whether some accusations of assault, even if they appeared to fall outside the statute of limitations, could in fact be included in criminal charges.

The federal investigation of Mr. Weinstein, which began last year, focused on fraud allegations in connection with two auction items that were to be offered together at an AIDS charity fund-raiser in France in May 2015, the people have said. The items were a sitting with a famous fashion photographer and a package of tickets to a Hollywood awards event and party. That investigation expanded into a review of whether Mr. Weinstein violated federal stalking laws, the people said.

News outlets have reported on dozens of allegations against Mr. Weinstein, many of them sharing a common narrative: Women reported to a hotel for what they thought were work reasons, only to discover that Mr. Weinstein sometimes seemed to have different interests.

But it remains to be seen how sweeping the charges against Mr. Weinstein will be, and how much supporting evidence prosecutors will be allowed to introduce in seeking to show a pattern of criminal behavior.

That is one of many hurdles sex crime prosecutions often face, ever more so in cases of powerful men like Mr. Weinstein who come armed with high-priced lawyers and private investigators.

New York Police Department officials said as early as November that detectives were gathering evidence with an eye toward preparing a warrant to arrest Mr. Weinstein. But as Mr. Vance’s investigation continued, the pace of prosecutors’ work fueled tensions between the police and district attorney’s office.

Mr. Vance’s office faced added pressure because it decided not to prosecute Mr. Weinstein after Ms. Battilana accused him of groping her in 2015. Mr. Vance said the evidence was not strong enough to win a conviction and dropped the investigation, despite having an audiotape of Mr. Weinstein acknowledging he had touched her breasts and promising not to do so again. The decision by prosecutors followed lobbying by Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers, who pointed to shifting accounts by Ms. Battilana in sworn testimony in another sexual assault case in Italy.

In recent months, Mr. Vance has been under tremendous pressure from activists and elected leaders to resolve his office’s investigation into Mr. Weinstein. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered a review of his handling of the 2015 allegations and women’s advocates have criticized the slow pace of Mr. Vance’s investigation.

source | nytimes

 

[fashionista-ta]

^^^ I don’t know either these women nor Morgan.

I don’t know the context of these allegations that he has been accused of, so I'll hold off immediately labeling Morgan as a sleazebag. For all I know, these women and Morgan could have been playfully and harmlessly being flirtatious— talking about workouts and underwear. He may have stepped over the line somewhere in that moment— and the women may have felt uncomfortable but just brushed it off. Until now. Maybe what they didn’t deem as inappropriate then, they’ve been influenced by the current political climate as totally inappropriate now.

Just like you’ve assumed the worst of Morgan, I’m going to assume the worst of the women's allegations. Until I know more.

Can't believe I'm reading this in 2018 ... no no no.


This is not brand new news about him ... I've read/heard about this before, and I couldn't be more removed from Hollywood than I am, and still live in the same country.


This is harassment pure and simple, what's being described. Underwear is not a topic of workplace conversation.

 

[MissMagAddict]

Perp Walk

source | cnn

 

[Lola701]

After watching this, confused is exactly the word i would use to describe this whole affair...

 

[Benn98]

Luc Besson: French film director accused of r*pe

19 May 2018

Police in Paris are investigating a r*pe allegation made against Luc Besson, one of France's best-known film directors.

The complaint was filed by an actress at a Paris police station on Friday.

"Luc Besson categorically denies these fantasist accusations," the director's lawyer Thierry Marembert told the AFP news agency.

"[The complainant] is someone he knows, towards whom he has never behaved inappropriately."

Besson, 59, a director, producer and screenwriter, is most famous for directing the 1988 film Le Grand Bleu, as well as Leon, Subway, The Fifth Element and action thriller Nikita.

He recently directed the sci-fi epic Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, starring Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne.

Source: BBC.com

 

[t-rex]

Wasn't he one of the few people who made a statement not supporting Roman Polanski?

 

[HeatherAnne]

The Morgan Freeman harassment stories aren't nearly as horrifying as the decades old reports of how he hooked up with his granddaughter who he was legal guardian of.

 

[Koibito]

Asia Argento, a #MeToo Leader, Made a Deal With Her Own Accuser

"The Italian actress and director Asia Argento was among the first women in the movie business to publicly accuse the producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. She became a leading figure in the #MeToo movement. Her boyfriend, the culinary television star Anthony Bourdain, eagerly joined the fight.

But in the months that followed her revelations about Mr. Weinstein last October, Ms. Argento quietly arranged to pay $380,000 to her own accuser: Jimmy Bennett, a young actor and rock musician who said she had sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room years earlier, when he was only two months past his 17th birthday. She was 37. The age of consent in California is 18."

Read more: Asia Argento, a #MeToo Leader, Made a Deal With Her Own Accuser

 

[Benn98]

Jennifer Aniston via Variety:

Did you ever work with Harvey Weinstein?
I did one movie, “Derailed,” with Clive Owen.

Did you spend time with Harvey?
I had to. There was the premiere dinner. I remember I was sitting at the dinner table with Clive, and our producers and a friend of mine was sitting with me. And he literally came to the table and said to my friend: “Get up!” And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” And so my friend got up and moved and Harvey sat down. It was just such a level of gross entitlement and piggish behavior.

Did he ever try to bully you?
He knew better. I remember, right when [his ex-wife] Georgina’s clothing line Marchesa was starting. That’s when he came to visit me in London while we were shooting. He’d be like, “Ok, so I’d like you to wear one of these to the premiere.” And I went through the book, and at the time, it wasn’t what it is today. It was not for me. He was like, “You have to wear the dress.” That was my only bullying. And I was like, “No, I will not wear the dress.”

And he accepted that?
Well, what was he going to do? Come over here and make me wear it?!

Variety - Jennifer Aniston on How Me Too (and Matt Lauer) Influenced ‘The Morning Show’

 

[Benn98]

Really quite shocked at the way this woman is being questioned and stitched up!?! I know the law must follow course but it just seems so crude. Speaking out isn't the brave part it seems, proceeding to trial is.

Brutal exchanges in r*pe trial of Yunxiang Gao and Jing Wang

Yunxiang Gao arrives at the Downing Centre District Court in Sydney on Tuesday. Picture: AAP

• DEBORAH CORNWALL
  
  
• 5:17PM NOVEMBER 5, 2019

The woman who accused a famous Chinese movie star and a TV producer of r*ping and “torturing” her had only invented the story after her furious husband texted her demanding to know why she wasn’t home at 4.00am, a Sydney jury has been told.

Chinese actor Yunxiang Gao and producer Jing Wang are in the second week of their trial in the NSW District Court over charges they took turns r*ping the woman after she joined them in Wang’s room at the Shangri-La Hotel in the Rocks about 2.30am on March 27, 2018.

In a series of brutal exchanges between Wang’s barrister Margaret Cunneen SC and the woman on Tuesday, Ms Cunneen told the woman she had lied to cover up cheating on her husband after he angrily confronted her when she got home, telling her: “Tell me what happened, don’t lie”.

The threesome had been at a wrap party earlier in the night – along with 30 Chinese film crew – after a week-long film shoot in Sydney for Gao’s TV series, Love in Aranya.

Ms Cunneen said far from being held captive by the two men, as the woman claimed, it was she who had decided to go to Wang’s hotel room after the party, cancelling her cab home when Gao had joined them at around 2.33am.

She said the woman had later told police her first chance to escape the hotel room had been around 4.00am after Gao had left and Wang was asleep and no longer a “danger” to her.

But the barrister said it was a series of missed texts from her husband from around 3.56am that had suddenly made the woman “panic”, including his message at 4.04am saying: “Didn’t answer my calls, that’s not cool.”.

Ms Cunneen said that was when the woman had woken Wang to blame him for letting her stay so late.

She said Wang had offered to take her home, but the woman had replied: “You don’t understand, it’s too late. Its all your fault, I will be in trouble if my husband gets angry.”

He said to you, “It’s OK, just calm down”, Ms Cunneen told the court.

“I didn’t say that, he’s making it up,’ the woman replied.

Ms Cunneen said within minutes of seeing her husband’s texts the woman had ordered a cab, scrambling to dress herself and fix her hair and make up.

She said Wang had told the woman to text him when she got home, but the woman had told him she would contact him first and would see him for dinner the following night.

“I didn’t have a conversation like that with him,’ the woman said.

“He put his arms out open and said ‘a hug’ … and you hugged him and said ‘when will I see you next?’” Ms Cunneen pressed.

“No, he was sleeping,” the woman said.

Hotel security vision shows the woman leaving the 16th floor room at around 4.10am, looking at herself in the lift mirror as she headed towards the waiting cab downstairs.

Ms Cunneen asked the woman on why she had been so concerned about her appearance given she had just escaped what she would later tell police had been an hour and a half of “torture”.

“The most important thing in your mind was … you were going to be in strife when you got home. That was on your mind wasn’t it? Ms Cunneen asked.

“I can’t remember what exactly … I was in a confused and terrified state,’ the woman replied. “ … I didn’t want others to know I had been tortured so I tidied up myself.”

“You weren’t tortured were you? Ms Cunneen said.

“I was tortured I was raped while I was having my period,’ the woman replied.

“You weren’t raped were you?”

“That is incorrect I was raped.”

The woman denied her husband had been “very angry” when she got home around 4.30am.

“Not angry, he was worried about me … I’m never home that late,” she said.

The court heard her husband had started calling Wang from his wife’s phone around 4.45am after she told him Wang and another man, not Gao, had made her stay at the hotel against her will.

“If you were scared and terrified it was of your husband and no-one else, wasn’t it?” Ms Cunneen said.

“You headed towards the bathroom, not making eye contact with him, didn’t you? To get away from his queries.”

“No, I just wanted to clean myself because I thought I was dirty,” the woman replied.

The trial continues.

The Australian