A woman, who had filed a civil complaint in 2020 accusing Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of sexually assaulting her in 2014, has now dropped her lawsuit, DailyMail reported.
The reason why the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, has chosen to suddenly withdraw her complaint was not mentioned in the request she filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court to dismiss her lawsuit. It is notable, however, that she has sought the dismissal of the case “without prejudice” which leaves the door open for her to refile the suit in future.
In the civil lawsuit filed in March 2020, Doe had accused Weinstein of sexual assault and battery related to an encounter at the Peninsula Beverly Hills Hotel in 2014. It was the second meeting between the two. The producer allegedly coerced Doe into having sex with him by threatening to derail her career if she were to reject his sexual advances. In the aftermath of the incident, Doe claimed that she slipped into depression and suffered a mental breakdown.
Since October 2017, more than 80 women have accused the 69-year-old producer of sexual misconduct, following which he was dismissed from Miramax, the production company he had co-founded with his brother Bob Weinstein, and expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.
In February 2020, Weinstein was convicted of rape and sexual assault in New York. Following a trial in the Manhattan Supreme Court, he was sentenced to 23 years of imprisonment for mainly two cases: a first-degree criminal sexual act when he forcibly performed oral sex on a production assistant in 2006, and the other for committing third-degree rape in 2013.
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Weinstein’s conviction was a shot in the arm for the #MeToo movement that witnessed women across the globe coming out with allegations of sexual misconduct and assault at the workplace against powerful men.
Weinstein was charged with several cases in California in 2020 for crimes in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills from 2004 to 2013, and was formally indicted on April 11, 2021. He was extradited to Los Angeles in June to face trial on 11 charges, involving five unnamed women.
He continues to plead not guilty, claiming that any kind of sexual activity was consensual. The case will be heard next on September 20.