Feminist Lawyer Gloria Allred Accused of Telling Harvey Weinstein Accuser to Stay Silent
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Feminist power attorney Gloria Allred reportedly told an alleged victim of Harvey Weinstein to stay silent as part of a settlement deal with the disgraced Hollywood producer, according to the New York Times reporters who initially broke the Weinstein scandal.
Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey revealed in a recent episode of the newspaper’s podcast “The Daily” that Allred’s firm advised the accuser — dancer Ashley Anderson — to settle with Weinstein for $125,000. As part of the deal, she was barred from talking publicly about her allegations against the producer.
Anderson, who now goes by Ashley Matthau, alleged that Weinstein approached her while she was working on the 2004 movie Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights in Puerto Rico. She claims that she met Weinstein in his hotel room where he masturbated on top of her.
“The restrictive clauses that go along with these settlements are remarkable,” Twohey said in the podcast. “Women oftentimes can’t tell their husbands. They can’t tell their colleagues. If they want to see a therapist, the therapist has to sign a confidentiality clause.”
Twohey said the alleged Weinstein victim was breaking her settlement by talking to reporters. “She is deciding that she’s willing to face the legal risks because she feels that strongly about telling the world about what happened to her,” the reporter said.
Gloria Allred has promoted herself as a tireless defender of women and has taken on clients against Bill Cosby and the late Jeffrey Epstein.
In the Times podcast, the reporters also reveal that Matthau, the alleged victim, also claims that Allred warned her that she wouldn’t admit that her law firm had represented her in the case. Matthau also told the reporters that Allred’s firm took a 40 percent cut of the settlement.
It was only after the scale of Weinstein’s alleged misconduct became public in 2017 that Allred took a more public role, by holding press conferences and talking about the women she represented against Weinstein.
“I felt like she wanted basically all the media attention,” Matthau told the reporters. “Like it — once it became a big story, then she wanted to be a part of it. But when it was not in front of the cameras, it was something that she didn’t.”
Times reporters Kantor and Twohey recently published the book She Said, which delves into the scandal and the newspaper’s role in breaking it.
In an earlier podcast episode last week, the reporters discussed Allred’s daughter, feminist attorney Lisa Bloom.
She Said reveals that Bloom tried to discredit actress Rose McGowan, who has claimed that Weinstein assaulted her. The book says that Bloom, who briefly advised Weinstein after the scandal broke in 2017, offered to place articles in media outlets that would portray the Grindhouse actress as unstable.
“I feel equipped to help you handle the Roses of the world because I have represented so many of them,” Bloom wrote in a memo to Weinstein that is excerpted in the book.
Bloom later resigned from Weinstein’s team and has since apologized. McGowan has called for Bloom to be disbarred.
The evil that was perpetrated on me and others was mind bending and illegal. Lisa Bloom should be disbarred @yashar twitter.com/yashar/status/ …
Like her mother, Bloom has promoted herself as a defender of women’s causes and has represented women in sexual harassment cases.
Michael Avenatti Says Stormy Daniels Owes Him $2 Million in Legal Fees
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Attorney Michael Avenatti has filed a claim against Stormy Daniels alleging she owes him more than $2 million in unpaid legal fees.
Avenatti filed the lien claim on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio, just days after the adult film actress reached a $450,000 settlement with the city regarding an incident last year when she was arrested on suspicion of inappropriately touching an undercover officer. However, the city attorney’s office dropped the charges within hours of the initial event, according to a Fox News report.
Thursday’s court filing stated:
Despite repeated demands that Ms. Daniels fulfill her contractual obligations and pay for the millions of dollars in legal fees and costs she has enjoyed for her benefit over the last approximate 19 months, including in this case, she has refused. Instead, Ms. Daniels maintains that because she is a ‘celebrity,’ she is entitled to free legal services and costs, and when confronted with her repeated failure to pay, she believes that she is entitled to manufacture and fabricate facts designed to impugn the reputation of her counsel and falsely accuse him of a multitude of acts. But the law does not work the way Ms. Daniels wishes.
Avenatti’s attorney, Tom Warren, reportedly said his client did great work for Daniels, all while “under intense pressure and scrutiny.”
“He made significant personal sacrifices for her benefit. He deserves to be paid by her, not criticized,” Warren concluded.
On May 22, Breitbart News reported Avenatti was charged for defrauding the porn star after federal prosecutors in New York City said he “used a doctored document to divert about $300,000 that Daniels was supposed to get from a book deal, then used the money for personal and business expenses.”
However, prosecutors claimed only half of the money was repaid.
Once the charges were announced, Avenatti defended himself on Twitter by stating, “No monies relating to Ms. Daniels were ever misappropriated or mishandled. She received millions of dollars worth of legal services and we spent huge sums in expenses. She directly paid only $100.00 for all that she received.”
“I look forward to a jury hearing the evidence,” he concluded.
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