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IN A FEDERAL court in New York, six women have proposed a class-action lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein.

Weinstein’s lawyers say that the lawsuit should be dismissed because ‘the alleged assaults took place too long ago‘. In Weinstein’s defence, they used comments by Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep and other actresses who spoke positively about Weinstein in the past.

Anthony Devlin Anthony Devlin

The comment by Lawrence was made to Oprah Winfrey. She said she had known Harvey Weinstein since she was 20 years old and that he had “only ever been nice to me.” Meryl Streep’s comment was that “Weinstein had always been respectful to her in their working relationship.”

Meryl Streep, angered by the use of her comments, responded:

Harvey Weinstein’s attorneys use of my (true) statement – that he was not sexually transgressive or physically abusive in our business relationship – as evidence that he was not abusive with many other women in pathetic and exploitative.

Michel Euler Michel Euler

The actress, who claimed to have no knowledge of the allegations and rumours relating to Weinstein until last year, continued:

The criminal actions he is accused of conducting on the bodies of these women are his responsibility, and if there is any justice left in the system, he will pay for them – regardless of how many good movies, made by many good people, Harvey was lucky enough to have acquired or financed.

Weinstein’s legal team also used Gwyneth Paltrow in the director’s defense, saying that she was “not so offended that she refused to work with Weinstein again” after he allegedly harassed her during the filming of 1994 movie Emma.

Jennifer Lawrence and Gwyneth Paltrow have yet to respond to the inclusion of their comments in Harvey Weinstein’s defense.

Elizabeth Fegen, the attorney working on behalf of the six actresses who filed the lawsuit said that “Weinstein and his enablers should be held responsible for decades of assaults and cover-ups. If Weinstein thinks he will win by twisting women’s words against them, he fails to understand the law on sexual assault and the depravity of his own conduct. ”

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