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Harvey Weinstein assistant Zelda Perkins: 'I was trapped in a vortex of fear' Harvey Weinstein aide tells of 'morally lacking' non-disclosure deal
(about 4 hours later)
Harvey Weinstein’s former assistant has said she became “trapped in a vortex of fear” after attempting to take action against her then boss in connection with an alleged attempted rape against a colleague. Harvey Weinstein’s former assistant has criticised the non-disclosure agreement she had to sign after leaving the film company Miramax as “morally lacking”.
Zelda Perkins, who is due to give evidence to a House of Commons committee investigating workplace harassment and the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), said she made a complaint against Weinstein in 1998 while working for Miramax, Weinstein’s first production company, in London. After a junior colleague told her that Weinstein had attempted to rape her at the Venice film festival that year. Zelda Perkins told MPs from the women and equalities committee that she left her job after Weinstein “sexually assaulted and attempted to rape a colleague of mine”, but then had to sign a wide-ranging agreement that required that she use her “best endeavours” to limit what she said in any criminal case against Weinstein.
According to an interview Perkins gave to the Associated Press, Perkins said she and the alleged victim were told that no legal action could be launched in the UK as the alleged crime had occurred in Italy. They subsequently signed an agreement negotiated with a Miramax lawyer that saw both women receive £175,000, as well as signing an NDA banning Perkins from speaking about the alleged incident. Perkins, who worked for Weinstein’s Miramax Films in the UK in the 1990s, said she was also banned from talking to a doctor about the events unless the doctor also signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
The NDA was negotiated by lawyers from the “magic circle” law firm Allen & Overy.
Maria Miller, the chair of the committee, said there were concerns about Allen & Overy’s behaviour during the negotiation, telling Perkins: “It’s been suggested that they might not have been working within legal constraints, for instance limiting your disclosure might be perverting the course of justice.”
Perkins said Weinstein was allowed to be in the room while his alleged victim signed the NDA. Perkins’s former colleague said Weinstein had sexually assaulted her at the Venice film festival in 1998. Both women left the company soon afterwards.
“We were brought into a room with Mr Weinstein,” Perkins told the committee. “That was the first time my colleague had seen him again. He had a long conversation with us, trying to bring us back to the company, apologising for his behaviour. In fact, it was an admission, which my lawyer noted, but was not allowed to leave the room with that piece of paper.”
Because the attack occurred in Italy, British police had no jurisdiction. Perkins said her own lawyers advised her not to go to court, because it would be her word against his: “I was told that wasn’t even worth considering because of the disparity of power.”
The NDA was reached after several rounds of negotiations, including one session that finished at 5am after twelve hours of debate. Perkins said by the end of the negotiations there was a “siege mentality”. As part of the agreement Weinstein agreed to attend therapy, and Miramax was required to act if there were any further complaints.
Under the terms of the agreement, Perkins said that the two women had to “use our best endeavours to not disclose anything in a criminal case” against Weinstein. Perkins said that she had believed she would go to jail if she breached the terms of the agreement. Perkins was not allowed to keep a copy of the NDA.
Perkins said that her plan was to go to Disney “because I naively believed that Disney as the parent company of Miramax would be horrified” and said that “my naivety was met with hilarity” by her own lawyers.
MPs said there were serious concerns about the reach of some NDAs. Under the terms of her NDA, Perkins said she was banned from discussing anything with “any medical practitioner, any legal representative, the inland revenue, an accountant, a financial adviser” unless they also signed non-disclosure agreements. Perkins said that her former colleague had felt unable to discuss the attempted rape with a trauma counsellor because of the terms of the non-disclosure agreement.
Mark Mansell, a partner from Allen & Overy, told the committee that he regretted that Perkins had found the negotiations difficult, but insisted that there were times when it was appropriate to limit statements made during a criminal inquiry.
Mansell said: “There can be situations where there is the possibility that the information being given goes over and above what strictly needs to be done and it is possible in those circumstances that someone may try to restrict that.”
Philip Davies, the MP for Shipley, said: “I was brought up to understand that you should tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” and added that the NDA “seems to fly in the face of telling the whole truth”.
“I don’t think that I am saying that you shouldn’t tell the truth and the whole truth,” said Mansell. “But I think there may be information that someone could voluntarily disclose that they don’t necessarily need to.”
Perkins said she faced whispers and rumours after she left Miramax, but was unable to explain the events because of the NDA. She said her career in film was permanently damaged by her departure from Miramax.
Weinstein has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.Weinstein has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex.
Perkins says that the agreement committed Weinstein to undergo therapy for three years, but says she has “no idea if any of the obligations were upheld”. Any therapist she used herself would be also required to sign an NDA, and she was told that if any of her family or friends revealed any details of Weinstein’s behaviour she would be held responsible. She told AP the negotiating process “was humiliating and degrading”. “I was made to feel like I was in the wrong for trying to expose his behaviour.” Moreover, she said she met Weinstein a year later at a film festival and “he told me that everything I had done was pointless”.
Perkins said she was in her early 20s when she worked for Weinstein. “Everybody knew that he had a roving eye and he pushed it with women.” On his habit of walking around in the office in his underwear she said: “I was 22 and I was like, ‘OK, this is what it must be like in the big league ... This guy is really important: he doesn’t have time to wear his trousers.”
Perkins appeared to break the NDA in October 2017 when she outlined accusations of harassment against Weinstein, alleging he repeatedly asked her for massages while he was in his underwear. She said: “This was his behaviour on every occasion I was alone with him. I often had to wake him up in the hotel in the mornings and he would try to pull me into bed.”
The Weinstein Company filed for bankruptcy in March 2018 and freed all its employees from NDAs they may have signed.
Harvey WeinsteinHarvey Weinstein
Sexual harassmentSexual harassment
Rape and sexual assaultRape and sexual assault
Film industryFilm industry
Women in the boardroom
GenderGender
Women
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