Harvey Weinstein’s former assistant demanded the producer attend sex therapy as part of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) she signed after accusing him of sexual assault.
The 67-year-old movie mogul is currently serving 23 years in prison after he was found guilty of third-degree rape and a first-degree criminal sexual act during a trial in New York in March, and following his sentencing, his former assistant Rowena Chiu – who worked for his production company Miramax – has spoken out to discuss the terms of the NDA she signed after accusing Weinstein of sexual assault in 1998.
By speaking about the agreement, Rowena is directly breaking the terms of the document but doesn’t think Weinstein will “waste his time or money” suing her because he still has other court cases to attend.
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She said: “He’s got 111 women speaking out against him, he’s already done one criminal trial in New York and he’s got another upcoming criminal trial in LA, so to be honest, he’s not going to waste his time or money suing me. I don’t have any money, so what’s the point of suing me? But legally, he’s within his rights to sue me and bring a case against me that says give back the settlement money. Every time I speak out, I run that risk.”
Rowena said she fought hard for clauses to be put into the NDA that would help protect future employees, including demanding Weinstein attend sex therapy and changing the way complaints were handled within Miramax.
She explained: “Stuff like Harvey must go to sex therapy, so he has to admit that he has an addiction to sex. And then there was all the corporate stuff we tried to put in about how complaints were handled – we even went so far as to say that if there is another woman who brings an accusation forward [within two years of the signed NDA] and Harvey feels compelled to settle with her for $35,000 or up, he will automatically resign from Miramax and report himself to the Walt Disney Co. How incredible would it have been if he had to do that within two years of 1998? This whole thing would have been cracked open in 1999.
“We fought really hard to have a really simple clause that said Harvey must either travel with one male assistant at any one time.”
But the assistant never got any money from Weinstein as part of the NDA, despite all the time she and other women spent “arguing” for their cause.
Speaking to Variety, Rowena said: “At that time, we were really young women who actually did not want money – we spent a lot of time arguing not to get money. We spent hours in that law office arguing for clauses that would stop Harvey and protect other women. But, if you are one little tug boat, how do you turn the Titanic around? It’s heartbreaking – when you read our NDAs, you see the path and the pattern where she tried to lay out a blueprint to stop Harvey.”
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