Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein reportedly hired private investigators, including ex-Mossad operatives, to dig background information on women and journalists in an attempt to stop allegations against him from becoming public.
In a new expose on Weinstein in The New Yorker, Ronan Farrow has detailed the length Weinstein allegedly went to silence accusers.
Weinstein hired Kroll, one of the world's largest corporate-intelligence companies, and Black Cube, an enterprise run largely by former officers of Mossad, the Israeli secret service, and other Israeli intelligence agencies, the article stated.
"Two private investigators from Black Cube, using false identities, met with the actress Rose McGowan, who eventually publicly accused Weinstein of rape, to extract information from her. One of the investigators pretended to be a women's- rights advocate and secretly recorded at least four meetings with McGowan.
"... The explicit goal of the investigations, laid out in one contract with Black Cube, signed in July, was to stop the publication of the abuse allegations against Weinstein that eventually emerged in the New York Times and The New Yorker."
One of the investigators posed as a women's rights advocate and secretly recorded at least four meetings with McGowan, according to the report.
The woman was a former officer in the Israeli defence forces and also met a New York Times journalist, who was working on a Weinstein story, under a different name, The New Yorker claims. Both McGowan and the journalist identified the woman.
Weinstein also enlisted the help of journalists to recover information against the women accusing him of sexual misconduct.
"One of them was Dylan Howard, the chief content officer of American Media Inc. which is the publisher of the National Enquirer and Howard also oversaw a television-production agreement with Weinstein, which has since been terminated," the article claimed.
Howard, in a statement to the magazine, said he split the two roles and resisted Weinstein's repeated efforts get favourable stories published.
Weinstein's spokesperson, Sallie Hofmeister, denied the report in a statement to The New Yorker, "It is a fiction to suggest that any individuals were targeted or suppressed at any time."
Weinstein, one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, has fallen from grace after the New York Times and The New Yorker detailed nearly 30 years of sexual harassment allegations against him.
More than 70 women, including stars such as Gywneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Luptia Nyong'o, have come forward to allege Weinstein of sexual misconduct since the articles came out.
A spokesman for Weinstein has denied allegations of "non-consensual sex".
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