A chilling secret tape recorded by an Italian model could have brought down Harvey Weinstein two years before his spectacular fall from grace in 2017.
In a new six-part series, Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes, which premieres on Binge tonight, model and budding actress Ambra Gutierrez talks to investigative US journalist Ronan Farrow about how together they managed to eventually bring down the 69-year-old Hollywood producer when law enforcement was not on their side.
Back in March 2015, Gutierrez, now 29, was wearing a wire fitted by New York police when she confronted Weinstein at a hotel about his inappropriate behaviour, telling him, “Yesterday you touched my breasts.”
The disgraced movie mogul told her, “I’m used to that,” before saying, “I won’t do it again” – as he demanded she join him in his hotel room despite her repeatedly telling him “no”.
“Don’t ruin your friendship with me,” the Miramax founder is heard saying.
Gutierrez had her confession, and Weinstein was taken to a local NYPD station that night for questioning.
The matter was directed to the district attorney’s office, which at the time was run by Cyrus Vance Jr.
But, Gutierrez tells in the podcast, during her interview with workers from the DA’s office, she was mostly questioned about whether or not she was a prostitute.
“I couldn’t believe it was actually going that way,” Gutierrez says to Farrow on Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes. “This person was against me.”
Meanwhile, Weinstein’s lawyers had hired an intelligence company to prevent the DA’s office from pressing charges over the matter.
The district attorney soon dropped the case claiming there was not enough evidence to charge Weinstein, while Gutierrez was being smeared in the press.
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She then got an email from Weinstein’s lawyers urging her to sign a nondisclosure agreement in exchange for $US300,000.
When she refused, Gutierrez was offered a boosted offer of $US1 million, which she later accepted after deciding she was fighting a losing battle.
Gutierrez disappeared for two years and attempted to move on with her life before hearing from Farrow in 2017, who had been investigating Weinstein after consulting with various well-placed sources.
The pair met at a restaurant in New York, where Gutierrez told Farrow she had a secret tape she recorded on her phone the night she got Weinstein’s admission.
Given Weinstein was never charged, the wire recording made by police was not public record.
Due to a clause in her NDA, the pair figured out a loophole that Farrow could record Gutierrez’s personal recording, allowing him to claim Gutierrez never transferred any files to him.
Farrow, who was working for The New Yorker, then published a series of bombshell tell-all stories, which marked the beginning of a global movement, #MeToo, saw Weinstein accused of misconduct by countless women and eventually resulted in him being convicted of sex offences and sentenced to 23 years’ jail.
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“(I felt) extreme happiness. The freedom that maybe a person would feel after being in jail … I don’t know like, it was just, like being born again,” Gutierrez tells Farrow.
And that’s just what unfolds in the first episode, with the second episode also now streaming. The next two episodes will drop next Tuesday.
Catch and Kill: The Podcast Tapes streams on Binge
https://news.google.com/__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?oc=5
2021-07-13 07:32:56Z
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