This week, it has been reported that Actor Julia Ormond filed a lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein, with the claim that he sexually assaulted her in 1995 after a business meeting in New York.
She is also seeking damages from Disney, Miramax and her former talent agency because she feels they failed to protect her from abuse at the time.
This case was filed in New York under a law that allows sex cases to be filed outside of the statute of limitations. The accused, Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence for rape.
Ormond is best known for roles in 90s films “First Knight”, “Smilla’s Sense of Snow” and “Sabrina”
She alleges that her career never recovered after the attack by Weinstein.
The suit argues that at the peak of her career, she and Weinstein returned from a business dinner to an apartment provided by the production company, where he “stripped her naked and forced her to perform oral sex on him”.
The lawsuit further stated that the sexual assault on Ormond could have been prevented if Miramax or Disney had properly supervised Weinstein and not retained him while knowing that he was a danger to the women he encountered at work.
Weinstein’s attorney Imran Ansari told the Associated Press that his client has denied the allegations made against him by Julia Ormond and he is prepared to vehemently defend himself.
Ormond is also suing the Creative Artists Agency (CAA), her former talent agency which she says failed to warn her about Weinstein’s abuse, and they also suggested that if she reported him to the authorities, she would not be believed, and he would seriously damage her career.
The lawsuit further stated that not long after Weinstein’s assault on Ormond and her reporting of the assault to them, CAA lost interest in representing her, and her career suffered dramatically.
A statement from her lawyers also said that after living for decades with the painful memories of her experiences at the hands of Harvey Weinstein, she’s humbled and grateful to all those who have risked speaking out.