Harvey Weinstein Faces Another Class Action Lawsuit

On Friday morning, three women filed a class action lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein, who just this week was indicted on rape and sex act charges by a grand jury in Manhattan. Miramax, Bob Weinstein and others on the Weinstein Company’s board of directors—who have been accused of being part of Harvey’s “sexual enterprise” and aiding his behavior in another class action lawsuit—are also named as defendants, as is Disney.

The women—Caitlin Dulany, Larissa Gomes, and Melissa Thompson—filed the suit on behalf of themselves and “hundreds of other females like them” who experienced “unwanted sexual conduct” from Weinstein “that took many forms: flashing, groping, fondling, harassing, battering, false imprisonment, sexual assault, attempted rape, and/or completed rape.”

“To the extent a woman was ‘lucky’ enough to escape physically unscathed,” the suit states, Weinstein “nonetheless caused injury to her business prospects, career, and reputation, and caused severe emotional and physical distress.”

In the ‘90s, Weinstein posed as a mentor to Dulany, who was then working as an actor, and she alleges he once falsely imprisoned and sexually assaulted her in his hotel room at the Cannes Film Festival. Gomes was a dancer and actor working on a Miramax movie in 2000, and met Weinstein on set in Toronto. He allegedly invited her to a meeting his hotel room, which she refused, prompting Weinstein to say his head of casting would be present at the meeting, as well. She attended the meeting, which went well and during which Weinstein acted professionally. Afterwards, he invited her to another meeting in his hotel room, and, Gomes claims, sexually assaulted her there.

Thompson went in to pitch Weinstein in on a new product to market films, and says Weinstein sexually harassed and at one point, caressed the inside of her thigh while she spoke. Weinstein wrapped up the meeting saying he had to work on something else for an hour and asked her to get a drink at a hotel later. Thompson says he raped her in his hotel suite there.

Read the full lawsuit here.