A leaked private email sent by Harvey Weinstein was published by TMZ on Thursday morning, showing the disgraced producer criticizing police investigating sexual assault charges made against him and asking the recipient for assistance.
“I’ve had one hell of a year… the worst nightmare of my life. As you can see from these articles, the police have played a very difficult role in my investigation,” reads the email.
“All 3 police officers have either been retired, or repositioned from the SVU,” Weinstein wrote. “The articles are self explanatory, but I’d like to speak to you on the phone if you have some time. There is more to this story…I appreciate your confidentiality. Have a read of these articles. I wish I didn’t have to ask, but I’d be very appreciative of your time. Best, Harvey.”
More than 80 women have accused Weinstein of sexually-based offenses ranging from unwanted advances to sexual harassment and rape. Police in Los Angeles, New York, and London have launched investigations over the past year into several of those charges, with civil class-action lawsuits being filed by some of his accusers against him and The Weinstein Company.
In May, Weinstein was indicted on six felony sex crime charges and forced to stay within the New York/Pennsylvania state lines upon arraignment. However, in October, one of the charges was dropped after an NYPD detective investigating Weinstein was accused of withholding conflicting information from a witness, an accusation Weinstein references in this email.
A representative for Weinstein told TheWrap that the email was sent by the producer to his friends in an attempt to find someone to help him tell his side of the story, but did not specify who the recipients were.
“As more information has been coming out suggesting that many of the original narratives were not entirely precise, combined with the difficulty in this era of getting the actual facts told, Harvey on his own initiative wrote letters to friends of his in an attempt to be heard objectively,” read the statement.
Weinstein has denied all wrongdoing and maintains that all alleged sexual encounters were consensual.