A model/actress’ civil suit against Harvey Weinstein will remain on temporary hold while the disgraced producer’s criminal conviction for the same 2013 Beverly Hills attack against his accuser is on appeal, a judge ruled Thursday.
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. Judge Elaine W. Mandel, who issued an interim stay on the case April 25 through Thursday’s hearing, extended the stay until Nov. 18. She also ordered the lawyers to file a status report five days before the hearing.
In their court papers, Doe’s lawyers maintained that a forcing them to proceed with discovery at this time would not be in the interests of the public as well as judicial efficiently, and also would prejudice Doe.
Weinstein opposed Doe’s motion for a continued stay “because he wishes to discover private information about the plaintiff that is unavailable to him under criminal discovery rules in hopes that he will then be able to confuse and obfuscate the appeal of his criminal convictions for raping plaintiff, according to Doe’s attorneys’ court papers.
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 contended.
But in their court papers, Weinstein’s attorneys, who include Bill Cosby lawyer Jennifer Bonjean, said Doe’s motion was meritless, that their client is not citing any Fifth Amendment protections and that his criminal conviction likely will be reversed.
“If the defendant was anyone but Harvey Weinstein, the issue before this court would be a simple one,” Weinstein’s lawyers argued in their pleadings. “Because a stay will not expedite or streamline anything, the plaintiff’s motion, brought after she voluntarily filed her lawsuit and demanded expedited proceedings, must be denied.”
A stay would “simply delay the inevitable where (Weinstein’s) convictions are likely to be overturned,” according to Weinstein’s lawyers pleadings. “This court need only review defendant’s opening brief to appreciate the substantial likelihood of success on various grounds.”
In December 2022, Weinstein, now 72, was convicted in Los Angeles Superior Court of three of the seven criminal counts he was facing — forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by a foreign object — all of which related to Doe. The attack occurred on or about Feb. 18, 2013, in a Beverly Hills hotel room.
Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison in February 2023.
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.