In an attempt to protect himself from multiple sexual harassment and assault accusations, Harvey Weinstein reportedly hired private investigators to keep tabs on his alleged victims.
According to documents obtained by the New Yorker, the disgraced movie producer recruited world-renowned private security firms Kroll and Black Cube to collection information on actresses as well as any journalist who tried to expose his crimes. The agencies are said to have spent about one year collecting information on dozens of people, compiling "psychological profiles that sometimes focused on their personal or sexual histories."
One of the secret operatives posed as a women’s-rights advocate to secure a meeting with Rose McGowan regarding sexism in the workplace. The agent recorded at least four conversations with the actress, who was one of the first to publicly accuse Weinstein of sexual assault. That same operative also posed as one of Weinstein’s victims during interviews with New York journalists. According to the report, the agent would meet with the journalists in an attempt to identify which women were speaking to the press.
Ronan Farrow, the author of the report, also spoke to seven people who were involved with Weinstein’s effort. One of those individuals was producer Pamela Lubell, who worked with Weinstein at Marimax "decades ago." Lubell told Farrow she was "manipulated into participating" after Weinstein suggested she and another former employee, Denise Doyle Chambers, write a "fun book on the old times, the heyday, of Miramax."
"Pam," she recalled him saying, "write down all the employees that you know, and can you get in touch with them?"
Weinstein’s spokesperson Sallie Hofmeister denied the claims in the report. "It is a fiction to suggest that any individuals were targeted or suppressed at any time," she wrote in a statement to the New Yorker.
