UPDATED: CAA has described allegations by Julia Ormond as “baseless” after the British actress sued Harvey Weinstein on Wednesday for alleged sexual battery nearly 30 years ago and also sued the agency for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.
In a filing with New York Supreme Court on Wednesday morning which also listed Disney and Miramax as defendants, Ormond, who starred in 1990s hits Legends Of The Fall and Smilla’s Sense Of Snow, alleged Weinstein attacked her in 1995 after a business dinner.
Ormond claimed the disgraced former Hollywood mogul forced her to perform oral sex, adding that when she notified her then CAA agents Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane she was told not to speak out and received no protection.
The actress told Variety, which broke the lawsuit story, that Weinstein could not have committed the act ”without enablers”. The two agents – now CAA co-chairmen – are not listed as defendants in the suit, although they are mentioned by name several times in the filing.
In a statement (scroll to bottom) an agency spokesperson said Ormond approached in March with the allegations and its lawyers found there was no case to answer. CAA said Ormond then demanded $15m in exchange for not going public. CAA rejected the demand.
After the CAA statement, Ormond’s lawyer Douglas H. Wigdor said: ”CAA admits that they hired Loretta Lynch to “defend” them. It’s not surprising, therefore, that she found nothing to support our client’s claims. I should also add that Ms. Lynch believes, contrary to what everyone knows, that the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell would be a fair arbitrator in the historic race discrimination claim we have brought against the NFL. It is rather obvious that after years of public service, large deep pocketed corporate defendants have turned to Ms. Lynch for cover and she has willingly accepted her new role. Rest assured, we will expose the real facts.”
Weinstein, 71, is serving jail time for rape and sex crimes related to other women and has denied the allegations. He has faced multiple allegations ever since his criminal predatory behaviour was exposed in a series of investigations by The New York Times and The New Yorker in 2017, however it is highly unusual for Weinstein’s business partners to be sued by complainants.
Ormond, whose credits include First Knight, My Week With Marilyn and more recently The Walking Dead: World Beyond, is suing Disney and Miramax, the influential Oscar factory founded by Harvey and Bob Weinstein decades ago which Disney owned at the time, for negligent supervision and retention.
The suit mentions former Miramax personnel and top Disney executives like Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg by name, although none of these individuals is listed as a defendant.
Ormond told Variety: “Obviously, Harvey Weinstein is in jail and is going to be in jail for a very long time. I personally don’t believe that Harvey could have done this without enablers. And for me, that is the layer that you have to get down to, in terms of the root cause.
She added, “If you think about it, If there had been best practices and Harvey Weinstein had been called out at the start after his first sexual harassment or his first sexual assault, he could have learned different behaviours, and potentially all of the people that followed wouldn’t have been harmed. But he wasn’t. And there’s a reason for that.”
Weinstein is serving a 23-year sentence for rape and sexual assault handed down by a New York court in 2020, Earlier this year he was sentenced by a Los Angeles court to 16 years imprisonment for rape and other sex crimes. The sentences run consecutively, which means Weinstein is likely to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Screen reached out to Disney for comment and had not heard back at time of writing.
CAA’s full statement appears below:
CAA takes all allegations of sexual assault and abuse seriously, and has compassion for Ms. Ormond and the experience she described in her complaint. However, the claims that Ms. Ormond has levied against the agency are completely without merit. Through counsel, Ms. Ormond approached CAA in March with these allegations about the agency. Knowing these allegations to be untrue, the agency then retained attorney Loretta Lynch and her law firm, Paul Weiss, to defend the company. Their review found nothing to support Ms. Ormond’s claims against CAA.
CAA received a demand, through its counsel, from Ms. Ormond’s attorneys, that CAA pay $15,000,000 in exchange for Ms. Ormond not making the allegations against CAA public. CAA immediately rejected this demand. Out of respect for Ms. Ormond, CAA shared the results of Paul Weiss’s investigation with her, through her counsel, providing evidence of a dynamic and engaged relationship between CAA and Ms. Ormond, and the agency’s consistent efforts to support her career throughout her time at the agency, from 1995 - 1999.
Ms. Ormond’s claims against CAA are baseless, and the agency will vigorously refute them in court.
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