Disney Execs Sued In Alleged Sexual Assault Case

It’s lawsuit after lawsuit when it comes to the Walt Disney Company lately.

From the high-profile case between Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to the recent Walt Disney World lawsuit involving a wedgie at the Typhoon Lagoon water park, Disney is having its fair share of “suing.”

Now, a Hollywood actress is suing Disney, CAA, and Miramax over an alleged sexual assault by Harvey Weinstein in 1995.

Actress Julia Ormond, a British actress best known for her roles in ’90s movies such as Sabrina (1995), Legends of the Fall (1994), and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) – both starring alongside Brad Pitt –  has today, October 4, filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court against Weinstein for sexual battery.

She also hopes to get to the “root cause” of systemic assault in Hollywood.

The alleged assault occurred nearly 30 years ago after a business dinner in New York City, whereby Ormond alleges Weinstein forced himself upon her. The My Week with Marilyn (2011) actress claims that The Walt Disney Company and CAA knew of the Academy-Award-winning producer’s behavior and did nothing to protect her. Disney owned Weinstein’s Miramax at the time.

She is able to pursue legal action because of the state’s Adult Survivors Act.

Related: Ex-Disney Cast Member Accused of Sexual Assault Found Working at Popular Universal Event

The suit against Disney, CAA, and Miramax claims that Ormond’s reps persuaded her to not take legal action at the time to avoid “incurring his wrath.” The lawsuit states:

The men at CAA who represented Ormond knew about Weinstein. So too did Weinstein’s employers at Miramax and Disney. Brazenly, none of these prominent companies warned Ormond that Weinstein had a history of assaulting women because he was too important, too powerful, and made them too much money.

Julia Ormond references her then-agents Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane or former Disney executives Jeffery Katzenberg and Michael Eisner (who was Disney CEO at the time) many times in the filing, though they are not defendants. The Disney execs mentioned in the lawsuit are no longer working at the company.

The suit filed against Weinstein is for battery, the one against Miramax and Disney is for negligent supervision and retention, and the one against CAA is for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.

Related: Model Sues Disney For Alleged Rape by Former Exec.

In a statement from her lawyers, Ormond said:

After living for decades with the painful memories of my experiences at the hands of Harvey Weinstein, I am humbled and grateful to all those who have risked speaking out. Their courage and the Adult Survivors Act has provided me a window of opportunity and way to shed light on how powerful people and institutions like my talent agents at CAA, Miramax and Disney enabled and provided cover for Weinstein to assault me and countless others. I seek a level of personal closure by holding them accountable to acknowledge their part and the depth of its harms and hope that all of our increased understanding will lead to further protections for all of us at work.

Of course, Harvey Weinstein, 74, is serving a 16-year sentence for rape in Los Angeles jail. Ormond apparently first met Weinstein in 1994 when Ormond’s CAA agents Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane negotiated a two-year deal with his company, “aware of Weinstein’s propensity for sexually assaultive and exploitative behavior […] but they did not disclose these circumstances to Ormond.”

Ormond added,

There’s no way that Harvey did this without people knowing. If people knew, they were either too afraid to step up, or they allowed the profit that they were making from their relationship with him to justify a cover-up.

Neither Disney nor CAA responded to the allegations. We will keep you up to date with this developing story.