Harvey Weinstein is arguing for the dismissal of his New York rape case by citing an email in which he says his accuser declared her love for him and said she didn’t want to feel like a “booty call.”
Weinstein and his lawyer Benjamin Brafman said the grand jury that indicted Weinstein should have been shown the email and other messages, because they suggest a consensual relationship between Weinstein and the woman and “appear to contradict that [the accuser] ever believed she had been forcibly raped weeks earlier.”
The woman accuses Weinstein of raping her in 2013. An email that Weinstein said she sent him in 2017 read: “I love you, always do. But I hate feeling like a booty call. :).”
According to Weinstein and his lawyer, the email suggests that the accuser wanted a deeper relationship.
“Although reflecting neither Mr. Weinstein’s words nor feelings, by using the term ‘booty call,’ the complaining witness appears to acknowledge the consensual, intimate nature of her relationship with Mr. Weinstein and perhaps, most importantly, signaled her desire for a fuller and more emotionally committed relationship. This evidence should not have been kept from the Grand Jury.”
Brafman’s filing said the email and other communications should have been presented to the grand jury because they might have made the grand jury less likely to indict.
“[Her] extensive communications and contact immediately following the now claimed forcible rape instead reflect a consensual, intimate relationship with Mr. Weinstein in an exchange of more than 400 warm, complimentary and solicitous emails with an alleged rapist for more than four years after the alleged rape, never once in those 9 communications claiming to have ever been harmed by Mr. Weinstein,” the filing reads.
Weinstein, who’s been indicted on six counts including two counts of rape, said in the filing that the Manhattan D.A. “failed to provide the grand jury with exculpatory evidence of the long-term, consensual, intimate relationship between Mr. Weinstein and the alleged rape victim.”
Weinstein was indicted on six charges including predatory sexual assault, criminal sexual act in the first degree, rape in the first degree and rape in the third degree. He has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.