Having previously lost a bid to prevent the relitigation in her civil suit of Harvey Weinstein’s culpability in a 2013 sexual assault, a model/actress is now seeking a stay of discovery in her own civil case pending the outcome of the disgraced producer’s appeal of his criminal conviction for the same attack.
The plaintiff is identified as Jane Doe No. 1 in the Santa Monica Superior Court lawsuit filed in February 2023, alleging sexual battery, false imprisonment, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Doe’s attorneys filed court papers with Judge Elaine W. Mandel in September asking that a protective order be issued, arguing that California law holds that the producer’s criminal conviction is conclusive for liability purposes in the civil case, even if the criminal case outcome is on appeal. Revisiting the facts surrounding the “horrific event” are irrelevant and will “only serve to intrusively burden plaintiff,” Doe’s lawyers further argued in their court papers,
But the judge ruled in October that the ongoing criminal case appeal mean there is not yet finality in Weinstein’s criminal case.
“Doe’s motion for a protective order is premature until the criminal conviction is no longer subject to appeal,” the judge wrote in her Wednesday ruling.
Now, in court papers filed Wednesday, Doe’s lawyers argue that the judge should put discovery in their client’s case on hold until Weinstein’s criminal case appeal is decided.
“Weinstein is now attempting to relitigate the entirety of the criminal case in this action,” Doe’s attorneys state in their court papers. “By this motion, plaintiff seeks an order staying discovery pending resolution of Weinstein’s criminal appeal. A stay will avoid potentially inconsistent and confusing rulings, and it may eliminate the need to duplicate discovery and relitigate issues as well as streamline trial testimony regarding Weinstein’s rape of plaintiff.”
After Weinstein has exhausted his appellate rights and if his convictions are affirmed, Doe can use those appellate decisions to establish finality that the sexual assault occurred, rendering liability discovery for the rape moot, Doe’s lawyers further contend in their court papers.
A hearing on Doe’s motion is scheduled April 25.
In their court papers, Weinstein’s attorneys, who include Bill Cosby lawyer Jennifer Bonjean, deny Doe’s claims, saying she is making a “wild allegation that he randomly and without notice busted into her hotel room, a woman he barely knew, and violently raped her.”
Affidavits from three criminal case jurors show Weinstein would not have been convicted had the judge in that case allowed the producer to present evidence showing that Doe was actually with her married lover on the night she claims Weinstein assaulted her, according to Weinstein’s attorneys’ court papers.
In December 2022, Weinstein, who turned 72 on Tuesday, was convicted of three of the seven criminal counts he was facing — forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by a foreign object. All three of those counts related to Doe, with the crimes occurring on or about Feb. 18, 2013, in a Beverly Hills hotel room. Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Feb. 23.
Weinstein’s attorneys previously filed an answer to the plaintiff’s civil complaint maintaining that Weinstein’s accuser’s claims are barred by the statute of limitations, that her request for punitive damages is unconstitutional and that her lawsuit should be dismissed.
According to Doe’s suit, she attended a film festival and alleges that Weinstein came to her hotel room unexpectedly after she attended events that day.
“After he was done raping her, he acted as if nothing out of the ordinary happened and left,” the plaintiff’s court papers allege.
Doe did not report the attack until 2017, when she had a talk with her daughter, during a time when Weinstein was at the forefront of the #metoo movement, according to her attorneys’ court papers.