Emmy Award-winning English actress Julia Ormond accused disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual battery in a lawsuit filed Wednesday, joining more than 100 women who have alleged patterns of misconduct from Weinstein over several decades.
“Our client has suffered tremendously both personally and professionally due to the assault by Harvey Weinstein, and the failure from Disney, Miramax and CAA to prevent it and to appropriately respond when she reported what happened,” Ormond’s attorneys told Variety in a statement. “She feels completely betrayed by CAA for its knowing disregard for her safety and well-being, and looks forward to holding accountable the people and institutions that enabled Harvey Weinstein’s horrific and predatory behavior.”
The two reportedly first met during a business meeting in London in 1994 after Ormond’s U.K. agent told her an “important producer” wanted to discuss the film business and multiple future roles. Over the next year, Weinstein and Ormond developed a “close, but professional, business relationship,” Variety noted. By August of 1995, her agents at CAA worked out a two-year production deal for Ormond and her production company with Weinstein’s company, Miramax, where she worked out of its New York City offices and lived in an apartment paid for by the company.
Ormond claims Weinstein forced her to give him oral sex after a business dinner in 1995 — around the same time in her career when she landed roles in films as the female lead, including “Legends of the Fall,” “First Night,” and a remake of “Sabrina.”
The complaint says that the alleged assault could have been prevented if Disney, Miramax, and CAA had protected Ormond. The suit also accused the three entertainment companies of continuing to “handsomely profit from their close association with Harvey Weinstein for many years after Ormond was assaulted by him and then cast aside by Hollywood.”
Ormond apparently told her former agents, now CAA executives, about the alleged incident afterward. But the complaint claims the agency did not take any steps to protect her, and not long after reporting Weinstein’s assault, “CAA lost interest in representing her, and her career suffered dramatically.”
Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year sentence in New York following convictions for rape and sexual assault from a 2020 case, which will be consecutively followed by serving another 16-year prison sentence in Los Angeles, making it all but certain that he’ll spend the rest of his life behind bars.