An Italian model whose testimony led a Los Angeles jury to find Harvey Weinstein guilty of rape in December has filed a civil lawsuit Thursday against the onetime Hollywood producer.
The woman, identified by the pseudonym Jane Doe 1, has sued Weinstein for sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress, while she has denounced «other unidentified parties» for negligence, the DPA agency reported.
In the complaint, the victim’s lawyers have argued that if the unidentified parties had «fulfilled their duties and responsibilities,» the plaintiff would not have been «assaulted or raped.»
«Harvey Weinstein has been convicted of raping Jane Doe 1. Her lawsuit seeks to recover compensation from him for the horrific rape she endured and all the problems she has suffered over the past ten years because of that rape,» said attorney Dave Ring, according to the agency.
According to the lawsuit, Weinstein, 70, assaulted the woman at the hotel in California after a film festival in 2013. The woman met the former producer at an event but returned to her room alone. Weinstein showed up at the hotel «unannounced» and called her from the front desk or lobby and demanded she tell him her room number, which she refused.
Still, Weinstein appeared at her door and «forced his way into the room,» where the woman was assaulted.
«He grabbed me by the hair and forced me to do something I didn’t want to do,» the victim anonymously told ‘Los Angeles Times’ in 2017. «Then he dragged me into the bathroom and forcibly raped me,» she added.
The woman reported the assault to the Los Angeles Police Department in 2017 amid the start of the ‘me too’ movement.
After a trial that lasted weeks, Weinstein was found guilty of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration with a foreign object in connection with the incident.
«Harvey Weinstein forever destroyed a part of me that night. I will never get that back,» the woman said in a statement following the conviction. «
Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence due to a 2020 conviction for rape and sexual assault in New York.
He faces a 24-year prison sentence in connection with the Los Angeles County conviction. It cannot be served until his New York sentence is served in full.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
