Harvey Weinstein. Image by Getty Images

By Josh Nathan-Kazis February 12, 2018

The office of New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a blockbuster lawsuit on Sunday against disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein, as well as Weinstein’s production company and his brother, alleging multiple violations of New York State civil rights laws, human rights laws and business laws.

Weinstein was fired from his production company, The Weinstein Company, late last year after more than a dozen women accused him of sexually assaulting, harassing or raping them.

The New York Times reported Monday that the lawsuit had disrupted an effort to sell The Weinstein Company.

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“The Weinstein Company repeatedly broke New York law by failing to protect its employees from pervasive sexual harassment, intimidation, and discrimination,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “Any sale of The Weinstein Company must ensure that victims will be compensated, employees will be protected going forward, and that neither perpetrators nor enablers will be unjustly enriched. Every New Yorker has a right to a workplace free of sexual harassment, intimidation, and fear.”

The lawsuit includes new allegations that Weinstein told several employees that he would “kill” them. It also alleges that he exposed himself to a female employee in 2014 or 2015, and that in 2015 the company took no action after a female employee complained that Weinstein had told her to come to his hotel room, appeared naked under a bathrobe, and badgered her for a massage.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at nathankazis@forward.com or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

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