New Les Moonves Accuser Says He Forced Oral Sex During 1995 Meeting
Moonves then conspired to keep her from coming forward, the New York Times reports
Jennifer Maas | November 28, 2018 @ 2:42 PM
Last Updated: November 29, 2018 @ 7:20 AM
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Former CBS CEO Les Moonves conspired with the former manager of actress Bobbie Phillips to keep her from coming forward to accuse him of sexual assaault, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
According to Phillips, Moonves forced her to perform oral sex on him during a 1995 business meeting. Moonves has since stated the encounter took place, but denies that it was sexual assault. “I strongly believe that the sexual encounter with Ms. Phillips more than 20 years ago was consensual,” Moonves said in a statement to the Times.
But in late 2017, according to the Times, Phillips’ former manager, Marv Dauer, contacted Moonves just six days after being contacted by a Times reporter about Phillips. The pair then discussed finding acting roles for her to keep her from going public.
Moonves, the Times reports, later told outside lawyers for CBS that Dauer contacted him to tell him about the press inquiry, and to tell him that Phillips was “making noises” and “always looking for work.” Through a spokesperson, Moonves also told the Times that Dauer pressured Moonves to find the actress work.
But in a sworn declaration and interview, Dauer said he meant only to warn Moonves about the inquiries, and accused Moonves of bringing up the idea of finding Phillips work.
The story notes that Moonves claimed to CBS’ outside lawyers the incident with Phillips was “consensual” and he was slow to disclose his attempts to get Phillips a job with the help of CBS casting director Peter Golden during the investigation this summer.
Moonves was accused of sexual misconduct by six women in a July New Yorker article written by Ronan Farrow; six more women came forward in August. Moonves resigned as CEO of CBS in September following a two-month investigation, but has denied all accusations.
If Moonves is determined to have not been honest with CBS investigators, the Times says, he could lose out on a severance package valued at $120 million. His contract stated that CBS would owe him nothing if he was fired for cause, which would include failure to fully cooperate with the investigation that led to his ouster.
Representatives for CBS and CBS’ investigation into the accusations of sexual misconduct against Moonves declined TheWrap’s request for comment. Dauer did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Phillips’ lawyer or agent.
Phillips told the New York Times that she met with Moonves on March 7, 1995, at the Warner Bros. studio in Burbank. She said that while he showed her an easel with various Warner Bros. productions, he said, “Look how hard you make me.” She said she “saw that he had undone his trousers, exposing his erect penis.”
She said Moonves told her, “Be my girlfriend and I’ll put you on any show,” then grabbed her by the neck, pushed her down and forced his penis into her mouth.
It ended only when Moonves’ intercom buzzed, she said, because a casting director Moonves had promised to introduce her to called him back. She said Moonves told the director: “I have this great actress.”
She said she thought of a baseball bat near his desk: “I wanted to use the baseball bat to knock his head off.”
Dauer said he called Phillips that day to ask how the meeting had gone: “Not very well,” he recalled her saying. “I don’t want to talk about it.” The next day, Dauer says Phillips declined an offer to meet producers with Moonves, saying she would never speak to or work with Moonves again.
According to the Times, Phillips has hired a lawyer to “pursue claims ” against Moonves and CBS, “including that he caused her emotional distress by dangling job possibilities to keep her silent and defamed her by insisting the encounter was consensual.” Phillips lawyer told the Times he had been seeking $15 million in damages for his client before negotiations with Moonves’ lawyers fell through, and now Phillips is “weighing her options.”
The Times story includes quotes attributed to text messages between Moonves and Dauer during CBS’ investigation into Moonves’ conduct, detailing Moonves’ requests for help from Dauer in keeping Phillips quiet with a job offer.
According to one quoted text from the Times, Moonves told Dauer on Aug. 11: “If Bobbie talks, I’m finished.”
The CBS board held “an emergency meeting” with their lawyers in late August, after discovering Moonves had tried to find a job for an accuser, with the focus now on Moonves’ relationship with Dauer, according to the Times.
“Until that point, the lawyers had recommended keeping Mr. Moonves as C.E.O. Now their view was shifting,” the Times wrote. According to the Times, lawyers then recommended Moonves be put on leave. He was forced to step down Sept. 9.
The Times said CBS’ lawyers recently discovered that Moonves deleted many text messages with Dauer, but that Dauer still has them, though he says Moonves asked him to delete them — which Moonves’ spokesperson denied to the Times.
Dauer, who preemptively denied he was blackmailing Moonves for work throughout their exchange, told the Times: “I don’t know how I got in the middle of this. All I know is that I’m a key witness with $120 million at stake. I can’t even imagine a sum of money like that.”
The Times did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment on how reporters obtained the texts and emails referenced in the story.
Tony Maglio contributed to this story.
Harvey Weinstein Scandal: A Timeline of a Hollywood Mogul's Downfall (Photos)
Harvey Weinstein was once the king of the indie film world. But the Oscar-winning producer's career and reputation have imploded since fall 2017, when scores of women stepped forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct. Three years later, Weinstein is now a convicted rapist serving out a 23-year prison sentence in New York as he awaits another criminal trial in Los Angeles. Here's a breakdown of what has happened since 2017.
OCT. 5, 2017
The New York Times publishes a story revealing that Harvey Weinstein had paid financial settlements to at least eight women who have accused him of sexual harassment or assault. Actress Ashley Judd is the only accuser to go on the record, accusing the mogul of assaulting her in his hotel room. In a statement, Weinstein apologizes, vows to take a self-imposed leave of absence from his company, and bizarrely declares war on the NRA.
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OCT. 6, 2017
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, as well as other Congressional Democrats, donate campaign contributions they received from Weinstein to charity.
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OCT. 8, 2017
Weinstein is fired as CEO from The Weinstein Company.
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OCT. 10, 2017
The New Yorker publishes its own piece, written by Ronan Farrow, in which three women, including Italian actress Asia Argento, accuse Weinstein of rape. Through a spokesperson, Weinstein denies any account of nonconsensual sex.
Hours after the New Yorker article runs, the New York Times publishes on-the-record accusations of inappropriate behavior from Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie.
BAFTA suspends Weinstein’s membership. AMPAS holds a special meeting to consider consequences for Weinstein’s “repugnant” actions.
Model and actress Cara Delevingne also comes forward on Oct. 11 to accuse Weinstein of making sexually inappropriate comments and harassing her.
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OCT. 12, 2017
The NYPD and London’s Metro Police both launch criminal investigations of Weinstein. On social media, Rose McGowan accuses Weinstein of raping her. (He has consistently denied engaging in nonconsensual sex.)
OCT. 13, 2017
Director Quentin Tarantino, arguably Weinstein’s greatest discovery, says he is “heartbroken” by the scandal. A petition to expel Weinstein from AMPAS passes 100,000 signatures.
OCT. 14, 2017
The AMPAS Board of Governors expels Weinstein. The Weinstein Company’s development slate falls apart, losing projects with David O. Russell and more. Release of Benedict Cumberbatch’s "The Current War" is delayed.
OCT. 15, 2017
Actress Alyssa Milano kicks off a cultural movement by encouraging women to share their stories of sexual harassment and assault on social media. She asks them to tag the stories #MeToo.
Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy vows to start an industry-wide commission to create “protections against harassment and abuse.” Frequent Weinstein collaborator and filmmaker Kevin Smith vows to donate all of his Weinstein Company residuals to Women in Film.
OCT. 25, 2017
The Taylor Sheridan film "Wind River," which had a successful release by the Weinstein Company in August, excises the Weinstein name from its home video and streaming releases. Principal financier Acadia Entertainment buys the film back from TWC and self-funds an awards campaign. (It doesn't land any Oscar nominations.)
NOV. 6, 2017
The Television Academy bans Weinstein for life. The New Yorker runs a follow-up piece saying a battery of former Mossad agents and communications experts were used to silence stories of Weinstein’s impropriety for years.
NOV. 15, 2017
TWC is hit with a class-action lawsuit from several of Weinstein’s accusers. The company is forced to sell its live-action "Paddington 2" to Warner Bros. to help infuse the studio with cash and keep the doors open.
DEC. 6, 2017
The Academy announces its “standards of conduct,” which read, in part, “The Academy is categorically opposed to any form of abuse, harassment or discrimination on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, disability, age, religion, or nationality.”
JAN. 1, 2018
#TimesUp is born as four female talent agents from CAA create a legal defense fund for women in the U.S. workforce to protect them from sexual harassment. The effort is announced and endorsed by contributors like Meryl Streep, Viola Davis, Reese Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Aniston, Fox Film head Stacey Snider, Fox TV honcho Dana Walden, Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey, among others.
JANUARY 7, 2018
To draw attention to the mistreatment of women in Hollywood, virtually all women attending the Golden Globes wear black.
JANUARY 8, 2018
Immediately after he wins a Golden Globe wearing a #TimesUp pin, James Franco is accused of sexual misconduct by several women. The accusations, which the actor denies, come in the middle of the Oscar nomination voting period.
JANUARY 9, 2018
Lady Bird writer-director Greta Gerwig joins Mira Sorvino, Chloe Sevigny and others in saying she would not work in the future with director Woody Allen, who had been accused of sexual assault by his adoptive daughter, Dylan Farrow. (He has repeatedly denied the accusation.)
JAN. 10, 2018
Page Six reports that Weinstein and Chapman reached the terms of an eight-figure divorce settlement, with Chapman securing primary custody of the couple's two children.
JAN. 27, 2018
The Academy emails members to reveal the process by which violations of its code of conduct can be reported.
FEB. 6, 2018
“I may be a 75-year-old white male,” says Academy President John Bailey at the annual Oscar Nominees Luncheon, “but I’m as gratified as any of you that the fossilized bedrock of many of Hollywood’s worst abuses [is] being jackhammered into oblivion.” (One month later, the Academy would investigate -- and then dismiss -- accusations of sexual harassment against Bailey himself.)
FEB. 8, 2018
Los Angeles police send three sexual assault cases concerning Weinstein to the city’s district attorney for possible charges.
MARCH 19, 2018
The Weinstein Company filed for bankruptcy in Delaware, reporting that it had less than $500,000 in cash on hand. Dallas-based Lantern Capital Partners stepped up as a stalking horse bidder prepared to buy virtually all of the company’s assets for $310 million.
Despite a last-minute bid from Broadway producer Howard Kagan’s Inclusion Media, a Delaware bankruptcy judge approves Lantern Capital's purchase of The Weinstein Company's assets.
MAY 25, 2018
Following a months-long investigation by the NYPD, Weinstein is arrested on three felony charges of rape and criminal sex act in connection with two female accusers. Weinstein pleads not guilty and released on $1 million bail pending trial.
MAY 30, 2018
Weinstein is indicted on charges of rape in the first and third degrees, as well as on charges of criminal sexual act in the first degree, as announced by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Then on June 1, Three women filed additional charges against Weinstein in a class action lawsuit, saying that Weinstein isolated the women “in an attempt to engage in unwanted sexual conduct that took many forms: flashing, groping, fondling, harassing, battering, false imprisonment, sexual assault and attempted rape, and/or completed rape.”
A grand jury served Weinstein with three more sexual assault charges, an additional count of criminal sexual act in the first degree for forcing a woman to have sex with him in 2006, and two counts of predatory sexual assault. The latter charge carries a minimum of 10 years in prison and a maximum of a life sentence. Weinstein would plead not guilty.
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AUG. 3, 2018
Weinstein made a push to have a New York judge toss out a criminal sexual assault case brought against him, saying in a filing that the Manhattan district attorney “failed to provide the Grand Jury with exculpatory evidence of the long-term, consensual, intimate relationship between Mr. Weinstein and the alleged rape victim.”
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AUG. 19, 2018
A report in the New York Times said Asia Argento paid a settlement of $380,000 to actor Jimmy Bennett after accusing her of sexually assaulting him when he was just 17. Argento denied the accusations. Rose McGowan distanced herself from Argento, and Weinstein issued a statement saying Argento displayed a “stunning level of hypocrisy.” “The sheer duplicity of her conduct is quite extraordinary and should demonstrate to everyone how poorly the allegations against Mr. Weinstein were actually vetted and accordingly, cause all of us to pause and allow due process to prevail, not condemnation by fundamental dishonesty,” the statement continued.
AUG. 30, 2018
Former NBC News producer Richard McHugh said that people at “the very highest levels of NBC” worked to quash Ronan Farrow’s Harvey Weinstein story that eventually published in The New Yorker. Then on Sept. 3, NBC News Chairman Andy Lack sent an internal memo saying that after eight months, Farrow's reporting “did not have a single victim or witness willing to go on the record.” Farrow disputed the memo and said NBC's list of sources was incomplete.
SEPT. 6, 2018
The U.S. Attorney’s office in New York opened an investigation into Weinstein’s involvement with the private spy firm Black Cube to see if he violated any federal wire fraud laws. Weinstein had hired Black Cube to gather information on those accusing him of sexual assault.
AUG. 26, 2019
Weinstein is indicted on two new charges of predatory sexual assault. He faces seven counts, including first-degree and third-degree rape.
The new indictment also allows for Annabella Sciorra to testify at his trial. Though Weinstein cannot be charged for raping Sciorra at her apartment in 1993, as she had said in a 2017 interview with the New Yorker, the actress’ testimony could strengthen the D.A.’s case against Weinstein.
The criminal trial, originally scheduled to begin on Sept. 9, is also pushed back to Jan. 2020.
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SEPT. 6, 2019
A judge grants the consolidation of charges against Weinstein, bringing the count back down to five. The consolidation, which was voluntarily requested by the district attorney’s office, dismisses prosecutors’ earlier charges of predatory sexual assault and essentially replaces them with the two new charges of predatory sexual assault that were included in the indictment last month.
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SEPT. 10, 2019
Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the New York Times reporters who first broke the Weinstein story, publish their book "She Said," which chronicles their investigation into the mogul and the aftermath of their initial story.
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OCT. 15, 2019
Ronan Farrow publishes "Catch and Kill," his own recounting of reporting on Weinstein and the roadblocks he faced while trying to publish his work at NBC News. The book includes damning revelations about NBC News' leadership and a detailed accusation of rape against Matt Lauer. (Lauer has denied the accusation, and NBC News has repeatedly denied many of the details in the book.)
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DEC. 11, 2019
Weinstein and his accusers reach a tentative $25 million settlement. $6.2 million will be split between 18 women, with none of them receiving more than $500,000 individually. The remaining $18.5 million would be set aside as a pool of money for participants in a class-action suit against Weinstein, the New York Attorney General's civil suit, or future claimants. The $25 million is part of a larger $47 million settlement for TWC to close out its remaining obligations.
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Time's Up denounces the tentative settlement, describing it as emblematic of a "broken system that privileges powerful abusers at the expense of survivors."
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DEC. 11, 2019
After accusations of ankle bracelet tampering, Weinstein's bail is increased to $5 million.
As court was convening, a group of "silence breakers" — including Rosanna Arquette, Rose McGowan, Lou Godbold, Sarah Ann Masse, Dominique Huett, Lauren Sivan, and Paula Williams — hold a press conference outside the courtroom to call on Weinstein to be held accountable for his actions.
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Just hours after Weinstein left the courtroom after the first day of his trial, Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey announced new charges of sexual assault against the ex-mogul: one felony count each of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by use of force, and sexual battery by restraint.
An arraignment date has not yet been set, but a spokesperson for the DA's office told The Wrap that they expect to wait until Weinstein's trial in New York is complete first.
Weinstein's bail is set to $5 million and, if convicted, he faces up to 28 years in prison.
The jury is selected for Weinstein's criminal trial. The 12-person panel includes seven men and five women. Three alternates are also chosen to sit in on the trial proceedings, should any of the chosen jurors need to be dismissed.
"Sopranos" actress Annabella Sciorra testifies that Weinstein barged into her Gramercy Park apartment around 1993 or early 1994, raped her, and then orally sexually assaulted her.
“My body shut down,” she said. “It was just so disgusting that my body started to shake in a way that was very unusual. I didn’t really even know what was happening. It was like a seizure or something."
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JAN. 27, 2020
Miriam Haley (née Mimi Haleyi), a former production assistant on the Weinstein-produced TV show "Project Runway," testifies that Weinstein pushed her down onto a bed, pulled out her tampon, and orally sexually assaulted her.
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JAN. 29, 2020
Dawn Dunning, a former aspiring actress now working as a costume designer, testifies as one of the prosecution's "prior bad acts" witnesses. Dunning says Weinstein put his hand up her skirt and touched her genitals in 2004 and then, later, propositioned her for a threesome with one of his assistants in exchange for movie roles.
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FEB. 24, 2020
After four days of deliberations, a New York jury convicts Weinstein of third-degree rape and a criminal sexual act, but finds him not guilty of the more serious charges of predatory sexual assault.
The Los Angeles District Attorney adds another charge against Weinstein based on a new accusation that Weinstein sexually assaulted a third woman in 2010 at a Beverly Hills hotel. If convicted, he faces up to 29 years in prison in L.A.
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JULY 14, 2020
A judge rejects a proposed settlement between Weinstein's accusers and the bankrupt Weinstein Company. The proposed settlement would've included an $18.9 million victims' fund.
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JULY 29, 2020
An appeals court rules that Ashley Judd is allowed to pursue her sexual harassment claim against Weinstein in court.
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SEPTEMBER 18, 2020
Queen Elizabeth II strips Weinstein of his Commander of the Order of the British Empire title, which was given to Weinstein in 2004. The top U.K. title is typically given to someone who has made a great impact through their work but can be revoked if the person has "done something to damage the honours system’s reputation," according to guidance from the British government.
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OCTOBER 2, 2020
Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey announces six additional sexual assault charges against Weinstein, making for a total of 11 felony counts: four counts of forcible rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery by restraint and one count of sexual penetration by use of force. If convicted, Weinstein faces up to 140 years to life in prison.
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A chronological look at how the indie mogul’s career and reputation unraveled
Harvey Weinstein was once the king of the indie film world. But the Oscar-winning producer's career and reputation have imploded since fall 2017, when scores of women stepped forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct. Three years later, Weinstein is now a convicted rapist serving out a 23-year prison sentence in New York as he awaits another criminal trial in Los Angeles. Here's a breakdown of what has happened since 2017.
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