Incarcerated movie producer and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein is suing his brother and fellow Weinstein Company co-founder Bob Weinstein for fraud.
Weinstein filed a suit his against his brother last week in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The suit adds his brother, former Weinstein Company president and COO David Glasser, former Weinstein Co. EVP of Accounting and Financial Reporting Irwin Reiter and several other unnamed persons as third parties in a complaint that was first filed against him by AI International Holdings in 2017.
That initial complaint demanded the immediate repayment of a $45 million loan that Weinstein procured with a personal guarantee from AI International in September 2016.
Weinstein’s suit alleges that his brother, Glasser, Reiter, and others made “knowingly false” misrepresentations about the purpose of the loan, inducing the #MeToo subject into guaranteeing the loan himself, which he believed was going to be used for “operational and financial needs” that would keep The Weinstein Company solvent. Instead, Weinstein claims his brother, Glasser and Reiter “diverted significant portions of the loan funds for unauthorized and personal purposes, including bonuses, unrelated business ventures, and personal expenses.”
Weinstein’s lawsuit comes nearly seven years after The Weinstein Company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2018. That move was made several months after The New York Times and The New Yorker first published their bombshell reports in October 2017 detailing Weinstein’s history of sexual abuse in Hollywood.
The Miramax co-founder additionally accuses his former Weinstein Company associates of engaging in settlement negotiations with AI International Holdings that were “conducted without transparency and in violation of the fiduciary obligations owed” and which resulted in Glasser and associates securing a $15 million settlement that left Weinstein “solely responsible for the remaining $30 million plus interest.” The suit claims their “misappropriation of the funds has caused Weinstein severe and outrageous financial and reputational harm.”
Weinstein is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, “injunctive relief” and attorneys’ fees and costs, as well as “any improperly appropriated or ill gained assets and/or monetary sums taken” by his brother, Glasser and Reiter.
In addition to this legal conflict, Weinstein is currently awaiting a retrial of the New York-based sexual abuse charges that he was originally found guilty and convicted of in 2020 but were overturned in April 2024 by the New York Court of Appeals. As of this writing, the retrial is dated for April 15. In January, Weinstein, who is currently serving time in New York’s Rikers Island jail, begged a judge to move up his retrial date — citing concerns about his poor health.
