Harvey Weinstein’s attorneys state in new court papers that a judge should deny a request by a former model/actress to prevent the re-litigation in her civil suit of the producer’s culpability in a 2013 sexual assault, saying Weinstein’s appeal of his conviction leaves matters still unsettled.
The plaintiff is identified as Jane Doe No. 1 in the Santa Monica Superior Court lawsuit filed Feb. 9, which alleges sexual battery, false imprisonment, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. On Sept. 18, Doe’s attorneys filed court papers with Judge Elaine W. Mandel asking that a protective order be issued, saying it was already established in Weinstein’s criminal proceedings.
“Here, Weinstein is attempting to re-litigate his rape of plaintiff Jane Doe 1,” her attorneys state in their court papers. “The law prohibits him from doing so. He was criminally convicted. California law holds his conviction is conclusive for liability purposes in this civil case, even if the criminal conviction is on appeal.”
Any information Weinstein’s attorneys need regarding his conviction, including Doe 1’s testimony in the criminal trial, is accessible to them, according to Doe’s attorneys’ court papers, which further state that resurrecting the facts surrounding the “horrific event” are irrelevant and will “only serve to intrusively burden plaintiff.”
But in court papers filed Thursday by Weinstein’s attorneys, who include Bill Cosby lawyer Jennifer Bonjean, Doe’s attorneys are “laboring under a serious misapprehension of the law” by bringing a “grossly premature motion … disguised as a motion for a protective order.”
With Weinstein’s criminal case conviction on appeal, Doe’s motion is “dead on arrival,” according to Weinstein’s lawyers, who further state that even if Weinstein’s guilty verdict is upheld on appeal, the claims and parties to this lawsuit are not identical to those in the criminal prosecution.
“Then, now, and forever, (Weinstein) denies (Doe’s) wild allegation that he randomly and without notice busted into her hotel room, a woman he barely knew, and violently raped her,” Weinstein’s attorneys state in their court papers.
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.
On Dec. 19, Weinstein, 71, 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.
A hearing on the plaintiff’s motion for a protective order is scheduled Oct. 11.