Yet another actress has come forward to accuse disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault — and law enforcement sources confirmed to Deadline that the NYPD is investigating the case and has been in direct contact with the Manhattan D.A.’s office about it.
CBS News reports tonight that Paz de la Huerta, then a film actress who would go on to star on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, said in a phone interview that the former Weinstein Company co-chair raped her twice in late 2010.
“We are aware of the sexual assault complaints,” the NYPD’s Sgt. Brendan Ryan said in a statement on Thursday. “We are actively investigating them. “The NYPD continues to work with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office on the case,” he added. “The investigation is on-going.”
As a specific part of that investigation, De la Huerta claimed that Weinstein offered to give her a ride back to her apartment after a party in October 2010 because they lived in the same neighborhood. At that point Weinstein insisted they have drinks, she said, and they would up in her apartment. The actor alleges that he then removed her dress and forced himself on her.
“He pushed me on the bed,” De la Huerta said, “and it happened all very suddenly.”
De la Huerta told the news outlet that Weinstein began calling her after the incident and that she confronted him a month later at a Los Angeles hotel. Just before Christmas that year, she alleges, he showed up in the lobby of her apartment building. The actress claims they went up to her place and that he raped her a second time.
She told CBS that she had been drinking that night and was in no state to agree to having sex.
De la Huerta’s claims are just the latest in a torrent of accusations by dozens and dozens of women have gone public with lurid tales of sexual predation at the hands of Weinstein. Along with New York police, law enforcement in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and the UK are looking into the alleged crimes.
Today’s allegations come as Weinstein faced off against his former company in the first actual court hearing since the New York Times published its in-depth piece of October 5 on the alleged decades of sexually harassing behavior by the now disgraced producer.
Weinstein was terminated by The Weinstein Company on October 8 and, while in dispute with the company he still owns 23% of and his estranged brother Bob, formally resigned over a week later.
In a hearing in Delaware’s Court of Chancery, Judge Joseph Slights made a decision down the middle of Weinstein’s on a motion to expedite matters in his document and correspondence seeking October 26 filed lawsuit against TWC and the company’s desire to push things back to the spring of next year.
“I can’t say that I see imminent irreparable harm here, at least not in the sense of something that’s going to justify deciding this case this month or even next month,” declared Slights in the hearing that was held over the phone.
With the possibility he could have tossed the whole thing out too, the Judge( or Vice Chancellor as he is known in Delaware courts) said wants to see the parties back before him in January. The specific date that seems to be penciled in is January 5 but sources tell me TWC attorneys look likely to want to push that back at least a week or two.
A week or two that, if the past few weeks are any indication, could see a whole new sordid state of affairs.
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