NEW YORK (NY)
The Washington Post
February 12, 2018
By Samantha Schmidt
New York’s attorney general on Sunday filed a civil rights lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein and his film company, accusing the disgraced Hollywood mogul of repeatedly sexually harassing, intimidating and demeaning female employees and perpetrating a hostile work environment.
Weinstein’s “vicious and exploitative” treatment of employees, coupled with the company’s failure to protect them, presented “egregious violations of New York’s civil rights, human rights, and business laws,” according to the lawsuit, which also names Weinstein’s brother and the studio’s co-founder, Bob.
The lawsuit, announced by state Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, appeared to throw a wrench into a deal to sell the Weinstein Co. to Maria Contreras-Sweet, who led the Small Business Administration under President Barack Obama. Negotiations for the $500 million deal halted Sunday, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, making it likely that the debt-ridden studio will be forced to file bankruptcy.
Sunday’s lawsuit, filed in New York County Supreme Court, relied on interviews with numerous Weinstein employees, executives and accusers, as well as a trove of company records and emails. The investigation into the Weinstein Co. detailed “a years-long gender-based hostile work environment, a pattern of quid pro quo sexual harassment, and routine misuse of corporate resources for unlawful ends” that extended from about 2005 through October 2017.
Weinstein’s “assistants were exposed to and required to facilitate” his “sex life as a condition of employment,” it alleged.
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