British actress Julia Ormond has filed a lawsuit in the New York Supreme Court against The Walt Disney Company, the talent agency CAA, the production company Miramax, and former producer Harvey Weinstein. Ormond claims that Weinstein assaulted her in 1995 after a work dinner.
In the lawsuit, the star of the film Sabrina (1995) and other movies such as Legends of the Fall (1994) and First Knight (1995) alleges that both CAA and Disney, who own Miramax, knew about the behavior of the controversial producer and did not take any measures to protect her.
Julia Ormond’s Lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein
According to her complaint, she says that Weinstein persuaded her to give him a massage, then harmed her and coerced her. She says that this happened in 1995 when she was working on the film Sabrina, directed by Sydney Pollack and produced by Miramax.
She also says that she informed her then-agents Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane (current co-presidents of CAA) about what happened, but they told her not to speak and protected him.
Ormond has sued CAA, one of Hollywood’s most influential talent agencies, for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty and accuses Miramax, the Weinstein-founded company that Disney acquired in the 1990s, of negligent supervision and retention. The term refers to retaining an employee despite the company being aware of the potential harm they may cause to others.
Julia Ormond’s lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein comes almost 30 years after the alleged incident due to the Adult Survivors Act passed by New York in 2022 in response to the #MeToo movement. The rule allows victims of assault to seek justice long after the events.
This case adds to a series of accusations that brought to light Weinstein’s abuse in 2017, resulting in a sentence of 23 years in New York and an additional 16 years in Los Angeles for the former film producer.
The wave of accusations against Weinstein began in 2015 when some actresses began to raise their voices about his abuse. But Harvey Weinstein did not see his career collapse until October 2017, when The New York Times and days later The New Yorker magazine uncovered a history of harassment perpetuated by the producer for decades.
Weinstein hires Bill Cosby’s lawyer
In May 2023, the former Hollywood producer decided to hire comedian Bill Cosby’s lawyer to appeal the sentence he received in February. Jennifer Bonjean, the criminal defense attorney who successfully overturned Cosby’s conviction in 2021, leads Weinstein’s legal team. In addition to representing Cosby, she was singer R. Kelly’s lead attorney during his criminal trial in Chicago and also defended Keith Raniere, leader of the Nxivm s-x cult.
