The Los Angeles police division has opened an investigation into sexual assault allegations made towards disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein as well-known victims continued to return ahead, together with 12 Years a Slave star Lupita Nyong’o, who revealed a strong private essay detailing her alleged harassment in the New York Times.
An Italian actress and mannequin, whose identify has not been launched, informed the LAPD on Thursday that she was raped by Weinstein in a lodge close to Beverly Hills in 2013, police confirmed on Thursday.
“The LAPD theft and murder division has interviewed a possible sexual assault sufferer involving Harvey Weinstein, which allegedly occurred in 2013,” an LAPD spokesman stated.
Weinstein is already beneath investigation by London’s Metropolitan police over 5 allegations of sexual assault from the 1980s to 2015, and detectives in New York have said they're wanting right into a 2004 sexual assault allegation towards the producer by actor Lucia Evans.
Dave Ring, lawyer for the Los Angeles lady accusing Weinstein of rape, stated his shopper thanked the “brave ladies” who had beforehand spoken out.
In contrast to a few of the different allegations made towards Weinstein, this alleged incident doesn't fall outdoors of the state statute of limitations, which means that he might probably be prosecuted for a criminal offense.
In the meantime, Oscar-winner Nyong’o claimed on Thursday that Weinstein harassed her when she was a young film student, including to the rising listing of girls who've made comparable accusations. She wrote that Weinstein invited her to his house for a screening, requested to offer her a therapeutic massage, and when she tried to sidestep the request by providing to provide him one as an alternative, propositioned her for intercourse.
“If I needed to be an actress, then I needed to be prepared to do that kind of factor,” she wrote. “He stated he had dated Well-known Actress X and Y and look the place that had gotten them.”
The 12 Years a Slave actor wrote that she “felt sick within the pit of [her] abdomen” after allegations by greater than 50 ladies turned public.
The variety of ladies accusing Weinstein of harassment has continued to develop since a New York Times investigation at the beginning of the month alleged incidents of sexual harassment, and the New Yorker published three allegations of rape.
Weinstein has stated most of the particulars are inaccurate, and has denied accusations of felony sexual harassment, rape and sexual assault. Sallie Hofmeister, a spokeswoman for Weinstein, has stated: “Any allegations of non-consensual intercourse are unequivocally denied by Mr Weinstein … with respect to any ladies who've made allegations on the report, Mr Weinstein believes that each one of those relationships have been consensual.”
The producer remains in sex addiction “rehab” in Arizona.
On Thursday, director Quentin Tarantino – one of Weinstein’s most frequent and celebrated collaborators – said that he had been conscious of alleged assaults by the producer and stated he wished he had completed extra to assist ladies affected.
“There was extra to it than simply the traditional rumors, the traditional gossip,” he stated within the interview with the New York Times. “It wasn’t secondhand. I knew he did a few this stuff.
“I want I had taken duty for what I heard. If I had completed the work I ought to have carried out then, I might have needed to not work with him.”
Going one step additional, Kevin Smith, a director who, like Tarantino labored intently with Weinstein on a variety of tasks, introduced that he would donate all future residuals from his Weinstein-backed films to the non-profit Ladies in Movie, which “advocates for and advances the careers for ladies working within the display industries”.
“My complete profession [is] wrapped up in one thing actually fucking horrible,” Smith stated on his podcast. “I’m not on the lookout for sympathy. I do know it’s not my fault, however I didn’t fucking assist.
“I sat on the market speaking about this man like he was a hero, like he was my good friend, like he was my father and shit like that.”
Weinstein Firm employees wrote an open letter claiming that, whereas they knew about Weinstein’s flaws, they didn’t know the extent to which his conduct had been predatory and illegal.
“All of us knew that we have been working for a person with an notorious mood,” the employees, thought to quantity greater than 30, wrote. “We didn't know we have been working for a serial sexual predator. We knew that our boss could possibly be manipulative. We didn't know that he used his energy to systematically assault and silence ladies,” the letter learn.
The ripple results of the Weinstein allegations proceed to succeed in far past the confines of Hollywood. For a lot of the week, the hashtag #metoo trended on social media with ladies in industries far past leisure sharing their experiences of harassment. According to CBS News there were more than 12 million “Me Too” Facebook posts, feedback, reactions in only a 24-hour interval within the US.
In France the social media marketing campaign coalesced across the Twitter hashtag #balancetonporc (“expose your pig”).
However not everybody was on board. Catherine Deneuve, arguably France’s most celebrated display performer, said the“flood” of social media posting was “terrible” in an interview with French HuffPost. “Is it fascinating to speak about it like this? Does it assist? Does it add something? Will it clear up the issue in any approach?”
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