New RICO Suit Against Weinstein Claims Brafman Firm Deceived Accuser | New York Law Journal

In a class action lawsuit filed Friday in Manhattan federal court, three more women have alleged they were sexually assaulted by former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

Caitlin Dulany, Larissa Gomes, and Melissa Thompson allege they were each the target of Weinstein’s predations, which were facilitated by his production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Co., along with individuals at those companies, as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise. The suit alleges violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

Among the defendants named in the suit are Miramax and the Walt DIsney Co., which now owns the studio.

Their claims join a suit filed in December by the same law firms, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro and The Armenta Law Firm, that laid out similar RICO claims against Weinstein and his associates by six women who all claimed to have likewise been harassed and assaulted by the former movie mogul. Additionally, the firm filed a parallel suit against Weinstein and others last November.

“Harvey Weinstein may have been put in handcuffs for his assault on two women, but we are working to see a day of justice for the hundreds of women who were exploited for Weinstein’s sexual gratification and silenced by this ring of conspirators,” said Hagens Berman partner Elizabeth Fegan in a statement.

The suit filed Friday includes the claim that a lawyer with the firm of Benjamin Brafman, who is Weinstein’s defense counsel, used deceptive practices to trick one of the plaintiffs, Thompson, into handing over evidence against Weinstein she says she had in her possession. Brafman denied the claim in a statement.

According to the complaint, Thompson was not told the Brafman firm was actually working for Weinstein. She alleged a lawyer with the firm presented himself as working for the victims of Weinstein, and she didn’t learn that fact until after she handed material over to the firm.

Brafman, who is currently representing Weinstein in the criminal case brought against him by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, said in a statement that he never met with Thompson or any of the other plaintiffs in the suit.

The lawsuit alleges that Alex Spiro, when with the Brafman firm, interacted with Thompson. According to Thompson, she and Spiro began talking in October, under the conceit he was gathering information to analyze her claim against Weinstein. She alleges they went so far as to discuss legal strategies Weinstein’s victims could employ.

In a statement, Brafman said Spiro left the firm in September 2017. Allegations of sexual misconduct against Weinstein first emerged in October 2017 with reports in the New York Times and The New Yorker magazine.

“To the extent he spoke with or met with any of these women, he did so on his own time after he had left this firm and was already employed by Quinn Emanuel,” Brafman said. “In addition, while at this firm, he never met with Mr Weinstein nor did he have any responsibility whatsoever in connection with our representation of Mr Weinstein in any matter.”

Spiro, a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, said in a statement, “I never have and I never would represent Harvey Weinstein, I left the Brafman firm well before Brafman ever represented Weinstein, and, in fact, I represent one of the key victims, but Ms. Thompson has never been a client.”

The RICO suit did not name Brafman, his firm or Spiro as a defendant.

While each plaintiff’s claim is unique—Dulany, for example, says she met Weinstein outside the Miramax office in 1996, while Gomes says Weinstein lured her to a hotel with promises of helping her career—all share stories of unwanted advances, inappropriate touching, and attempts at forcing each woman into sex acts. In the case of Thompson, who went to Weinstein to pitch a technology venture she was working on, the movie producer is alleged to have forcibly rape her.

Citing numerous media accounts, the complaint goes on to allege Weinstein’s assistants and colleagues either actively participated in the luring in of the alleged victims, or helped him to cover up and in some cases actively intimidate those assaulted as part of “the Weinstein Sexual Enterprise.”

In a statement, Kupferstein Manuel name attorney Phyllis Kupferstein, who is part of the legal team representing Weinstein in the previous RICO suit filed in the Southern District of New York, said the latest suit “suffers from the same lack of merit” as the previous suit, which Weinstein’s team has sought to dismiss.