Our Demand Letter
To The Honorable Jay Clayton:
I represent Ms. Ambra Battilana-Gutierrez, an Italian model and survivor of sexual assault by Harvey Weinstein. I am urging you to conduct an impartial and thorough corruption investigation into the New York City Police Department, the New York County District Attorney’s Office, and certain individuals who work, or worked, for said agencies, as detailed within this letter. I am confident that your investigation will reveal unassailable evidence that Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s 2015 sexual assault was deliberately covered up, that in order to justify dismissing Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s claims, law enforcement exaggerated and overemphasized irrelevant aspects of Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s personal life and modeling career, and – lastly – that the reason the police and District Attorney took such measures was to cater to Mr. Weinstein, a powerful, wealthy, and intimidating entertainment mogul who often funded the New York City Police Department and befriended its top brass.
Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez stood up and spoke out against Mr. Weinstein before it became commonplace to do so and before he was exposed as a predator by throngs of women; unfortunately, her early – and solo – protests made it easy for those in power to silence her and protect him. To date, despite other jurisdictions finding Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez and her accusations credible, and despite corroboration by countless other women who have come out with similar stories, none of the individuals who committed this morally corrupt, illegal cover-up have been held accountable. We are demanding justice for Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez. Mr.Weinstein was never prosecuted for the crimes he committed against Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez, but there is still time to fix the system that protected him from his accuser and allowed him to continue preying on other women.
March 27, 2015
On March 27, 2015 at approximately 6:00pm, Ambra Battilana-Gutierrez entered Harvey Weinstein’s office, located at the Tribeca Film Center at 375 Greenwich Street in New York City. She had been introduced to the movie producer the night before by her agent, Craig Lawrence, while attending a show Mr. Weinstein had produced at Radio City Music Hall called “New York Spring Spectacular.” Other models aside from Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez were also in attendance. Mr. Weinstein and Mr. Lawrence exchanged business cards, and Mr. Weinstein asked Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez to come to his office the following day. Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez was twenty-two years old at the time, and only in the United States for three weeks, on a work visa through her modeling agency. She did not know, or know of, Mr. Weinstein.
Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez brought her modeling portfolio with her to the March 27th meeting. Surveillance footage from 375 Greenwich Street confirms Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s arrival with her book, and her entry into Mr. Weinstein’s office at 6:02pm. While alone in the office, Mr. Weinstein told Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez to sit on his couch – later infamously deemed by those who knew him as the “casting couch.” Mr. Weinstein informed Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez that he was very powerful, that he “made” people’s careers and that he could get her a modeling job with Victoria’s Secret. Mr. Weinstein asked Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez if her breasts were real, immediately grabbing her breasts without her permission. Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez told him to stop and she removed his hands from her body. Mr. Weinstein put his hand up Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s skirt, onto her thigh, and began moving his hand up towards her vagina while asking her for a kiss. Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez again removed Mr. Weinstein’s hand from her body and rejected his kiss. Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez was shocked, humiliated and terrified.
In an attempt to calm Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez down, Mr. Weinstein asked his assistant to obtain tickets to see Finding Neverland the same night for Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez. He also promised to take her out for drinks afterwards. New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) Detectives recovered emails showing that Mr. Weinstein’s assistant, Lindsay Orr, procured tickets to the Lunt-Fontanne Theater for that evening’s Finding Neverland show. Ms. Orr’s email stated, in sum, “URGENT: Need two premiere tickets tonight.” At 7:15pm, the theater confirmed the tickets; Ms. Orr emailed the confirmation one minute later to Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez.
But Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez had already left Mr. Weinstein’s office by then and instead of going to Finding Neverland, she headed to the police station. Surveillance video from Mr. Weinstein’s reception and the main corridor showed Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez leaving his office at 6:30pm, less than thirty minutes after arriving. Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez immediately told two of her friends what happened, and they took her to the 9th Precinct in Manhattan. These outcry witnesses, music manager Robert Hoffman and his girlfriend Karina Bartkevica, were later interviewed by NYPD Detectives, and gave consistent, corroborative versions of Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s statements and demeanor.
NYPD Detectives interviewed the 9th Precinct Desk Sergeant, Joseph Dellauniversita, who confirmed that Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez arrived with a male and female, and that she was visibly crying with mascara running down her face, shaking uncontrollably, and appearing as if she might faint. Sergeant Dellauniversita stated that Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez almost vomited while retelling the story, and that he was considering calling her an ambulance. Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez, unfamiliar with police protocol, had gone to the wrong precinct; she needed to file her initial complaint with the 1st Precinct, in the neighborhood where the incident occurred. A police officer with the last name Delway transported Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez and her friends from the 9th Precinct to the 1st Precinct. Officer Delway confirmed to Detectives that Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez was upset, crying, and afraid. He further stated that he heard Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez tell her friends that she did not want what happened to her to happen to other girls.
After a short interview at the 1st Precinct, during which a desk officer stated “not him again” when Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez disclosed the perpetrator was Harvey Weinstein, the Manhattan Special Victims Squad took over the matter. At approximately 8:50pm, Special Victims Detective Rosita Williams was assigned the case. By 10:40pm, Detective Williams started her interviews, first of Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez herself and later of Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s friends, Robert Hoffman and Karina Bartkevica. Mr. Hoffman told Detective Williams that Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez called him and was crying and hysterical while she relayed the events in question; his recall of the conversation matched Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s statement to police. Mr. Hoffman also stated that he warned Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez to think about the consequences to her career should she report Mr. Weinstein, but that she was determined to tell police what he did.
Special Victims Division (“SVD”) Deputy Chief Michael Osgood, who was overseeing the investigation, recognized that with such a high-profile perpetrator, he needed to prioritize confidentiality to avoid interference by Mr. Weinstein, and to build an indestructible case for the New York County District Attorney’s Office (“DANY”) to prosecute. Above and beyond the evidence already collected, which was enough to clear the necessary probable cause standard, he instructed his team to conduct a controlled phone call, a controlled meeting between Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez and Mr. Weinstein, and to bring Mr. Weinstein in for questioning within 24-hours. Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Osgood had details of the incident relayed to DANY’s Sex Crimes Unit Chief Marsha Bashford [1]. This protocol is established for high-profile cases, as opposed to the usual process whereby NYPD makes an arrest first and collaborates with DANY afterwards. Communicating in advance on high stakes, press-attention cases allows for collaboration between the two agencies, and prepares prosecutors before media inquiries pour in.
At approximately 11:30pm, Detective Williams commenced the controlled phone call, wherein Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez spoke to Mr. Weinstein on a recorded line. During that phone call, Mr. Weinstein stated that Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s breasts were “fine,” which provided corroborative value to Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s claims. Mr. Weinstein seemed on the call to be upset with Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez for not attending Finding Neverland; this gave the Detectivesthe perfect opportunity to arrange for the controlled meet the following evening, March 28, 2015. Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez bravely agreed to wear a wire to her meeting with Mr. Weinstein, to try to extract and record a confession. SVD Lieutenant Austin Morange spoke with DANY Chief Martha Bashford, who asked Lieutenant Morange to let her know the result of the controlled meet when it was completed.
March 28, 2015
The SVD investigators took precautions to protect and prepare Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez for the March 28th meeting. At 10:00am, Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez arrived at the Manhattan Special Victims Squad to prepare for the meeting. A twelve-person investigative team assembled for the task. Mr. Weinstein called Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez; SVD Detectives recorded the call. In the call, Mr. Weinstein explained he would send a car to pick Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez up and bring her to the 2:00pm showing of Finding Neverland at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater. He further stated that the car would wait for her, and bring her after the show to meet him at 5:30pm at the Church Bar located inside of the Tribeca Grand Hotel in Manhattan.
Several SVD investigators stationed themselves undercover in opportune places within and outside the Tribeca Grand Hotel and also followed the vehicle carrying Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez from the Lunt-Fontanne Theater to the Tribeca Grand Hotel. Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez willingly wore the aforementioned wire and also recorded the meeting on her personal iPhone as a backup plan, pursuant to the SVD Detectives’ instructions.
At 5:00pm, Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez entered the hotel. Shortly after that, Mr. Weinstein arrived and Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez began to record their conversation. After only around ten minutes of conversation, Mr. Weinstein abruptly stood and commanded Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez to come upstairs with him so he could get dressed for an event. Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez, using quick thinking, purposely left her coat behind while following Mr. Weinstein up to the second floor; this allowed her an excuse to leave and go back downstairs, where she knew the SVD investigators were hiding.
Unfortunately, soon after they returned downstairs, Mr. Weinstein led her back to the second floor, to room 206. He attempted to get Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez into his room, but a member of the undercover investigative team, Sergeant Andy Riehle, quickly saved Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez by pretending to be a member of the popular news gossip channel TMZ, and asked Mr. Weinstein for a photograph. This incensed Mr. Weinstein, but successfully thwarted his plan. Mr. Weinstein went to the hotel’s front desk to complain about the TMZ employee.
Undeterred, Mr. Weinstein again persuaded Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez to follow him out of the bar area and towards one of his rooms, this time to the eighth floor penthouse. While in the elevator, he offered Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez a massage and said they would do “other things” as well. Mr. Weinstein, as evidenced on the recorded conversation, was manipulative, demanding and condescending to Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez. Nevertheless, Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez was successful in extracting a confession out of Mr. Weinstein. When she asked him why he touched her breast the previous day, he replied, “please, I’m sorry, I’m used to it” and would not do it again. He later stated on the recording, “I will never do another thing to you.” He told her she should come into his room and stated over and over that she should not embarrass him in the hotel in front of other people or make a big scene when Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez told him againand again that she was scared to come inside. He angrily dismissed Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez [2].
At 6:35pm, Mr. Weinstein returned to his table in the Church Bar. Lieutenant Morange and Sergeant Keri Thompson approached Mr. Weinstein, asking for him to come with them to the precinct. Mr. Weinstein demanded to know who they were and threatened, repeatedly, to call Police Commissioner William Bratton. He stated several times that he knew “powerful people in government,” including Commissioner Bratton, former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, former Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik and former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani. Inside the police vehicle, Mr. Weinstein continued to intimidate the Lieutenant and his officers, calling them dirty cops and threatening to take their jobs. Mr. Weinstein bragged that he was a powerful person with tremendous influence.
During this time, Deputy Chief Osgood was attempting to keep NYPD’s Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce apprised of the escalating situation with Mr. Weinstein, but Chief Boyce was not returning his calls. When they did finally connect, Chief Boyce told Deputy Chief Osgood not to arrest Mr. Weinstein. The order came down too late. Deputy Chief Osgood explained to Chief Boyce that Mr. Weinstein was already in the back of a police car headed to the 9th precinct for questioning. Chief Boyce, sounding panicked, replied: “Fuck! Interview him and then cut him loose. I have to call Bratton back.”
At the 9th precinct, Mr. Weinstein was informed of Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s allegation. Immediately, Mr. Weinstein invoked his right to counsel, which ended any attempt at an interrogation. Detectives escorted Mr. Weinstein to his office.
The Dismissal of Charges and Cover-Up
It was at this time, during the attempted interrogation, that Mr. Weinstein found out Ambra Battilana-Gutierrez had the nerve to pursue criminal charges against him, and, worse, that “rogue” NYPD detectives, who were not bought or controlled by him, were actually moving forward with a case. This was not the star treatment Mr. Weinstein had come to expect, and he had to do something about it. After Mr. Weinstein’s temporary detention – that is, after he found out what the allegations were and by whom – everything changed.
Mr. Weinstein assembled his team of “tremendous influence” attorneys. For years, he had funneled money to police and politicians in order to invest in those whom he could manipulate at a later time. Mr. Weinstein was coming to collect. His team strategized a plan to bury Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez and free Mr. Weinstein from consequences; and it worked. Just like that, after March 28, 2015, despite overwhelming credible evidence, the case began to nosedive.
On March 29, 2015, Mr. Weinstein told one of his employees, Michael Lappin [3], to go to Weinstein’s office at 375 Greenwich to ensure no police or press arrived there, in anticipation of an early morning meeting scheduled for March 30, 2015. Mr. Lappin did as he was told, even sleeping in the office overnight.
On the morning of March 30, 2015, several high-powered attorneys convened at Weinstein’s Greenwich Street office including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former New York County District Attorney’s Office Sex Crimes Unit Chief Linda Fairstein [4]. David Boies [5], Bill Clinton’s former attorney, called into the meeting as well, but was not physically present. It is also believed that Mr. Weinstein called in a digital forensics expert investigator, who scrubbed Mr. Weinstein’s digital devices of anything incriminating, an act that would qualify as tampering with evidence.
The strategy session concluded with plans to discredit Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez both publicly and with DANY prosecutors, and, in conjunction with that scheme, for Rudy Giuliani to coordinate the closure of the pending case with NYPD Commissioner Bratton. Mr. Weinstein left that meeting free from inculpatory digital evidence, and with his influential team of attorneys and investigators prepared to turn the entire city against his accuser. Mr. Giuliani covertly spoke with both Commissioner Bratton and Chief Boyce that same day. The effects of the meeting and the executed strategy were stunning and practically immediate. Investigators that Mr. Weinstein hired searched for ways to discredit Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez, including by digging into her life in Italy [6].
Early in the day on March 30, 2015, prior to Mr. Guiliani’s calls to Commissioner Bratton and Chief Boyce, the prosecution was still moving forward, with the SVD detective team meeting with DANY Sex Crimes Bureau Chief Martha Bashford. In fact, during this meeting, Bureau Chief Bashford told the detectives they had far exceeded the standard of probable cause for Weinstein’s arrest. She stated in that meeting, “I don’t see why you can’t make an arrest.” But hours later, at approximately 2:00pm, Bureau Chief Bashford called SVD Lieutenant Morange and stated that she had spoken with “the 8th floor” [7] and directed the NYPD to “hold off” on arresting Mr. Weinstein.
Fifteen minutes later, a scandalous Page Six article was published online in the New York Post [8] detailing Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s accusation. The article took a clear position supporting Mr. Weinstein. The New York Post provided scant details of Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s account and every quote in the article, aside from that of Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s attorney, endorsed Mr. Weinstein. The paper quoted a law enforcement source as saying the matter was “BS” and “not going anywhere;” this, despite the fact that those working the case within the NYPD were preparing to make an arrest. The piece also quoted a “a movie industry source” who said “[w]e believe this is a blackmail attempt, and [Weinstein] did nothing wrong.” Half of the New York Post’s article was dedicated to detailing Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s presence at former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s “bunga bunga” party years prior as if it were a mark on her character rather than corroboration that Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez was unafraid to go after powerful men who abuse women. In fact, the article conveniently failed to mention that Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s account of what happened in Italy was deemed credible in the Italian courts, nor did the article explain that her presence at the party was due to her position as a Miss Italy pageant contender, not because of any sexual promiscuity.
In one day, Mr. Weinstein’s team was able to convince the DA to shut down Weinstein’s imminent arrest and completely tarnish Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s credibility by publicly branding her a prostitute and extorter.
The pressure to bury Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez and her allegations only continued after that day. On April 2, 2015, DANY sent out their own Detective Investigators, Alan Sandomir and Steve Lane (the “DANY Detectives”), to Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s apartment. There, the DANY Detectives interviewed Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s roommates even though the roommates played no part in the case against Mr. Weinstein: they did not witness the incident, the outcry, or the controlled calls or meetings. The DANY Detectives asked the roommates whether Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez was a prostitute or a stripper, and whether she brought strange men home with her. They confiscated 30 days’ worth of surveillance video from Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s apartment to determine whether she was sleeping with other men; or, more likely, to prove she was. They were unable to substantiate any of those hypotheses.
The DANY Detectives were essentially commandeered for Weinstein’s agenda, with the goal of documenting a sullied version of Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez. There was no other way for DANY to drop the case. They could not rely on other common reasons to decline prosecution, such as lack of victim cooperation or insufficient evidence. The only option left was for DANY to find Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez incredible. Thus, the DANY Detectives continued their mission alongside Mr. Weinstein’s team of attorneys [9]. The DANY and Weinstein teams worked up anegative profile on Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez, with DANY even visiting her modeling agency in an attempt to obtain information that would tarnish her reputation.
On April 3, 2015, at approximately 11:00am, SVD Detectives met with Gregg Turkin, an attorney who worked for NYPD’s Legal Bureau. While unorthodox to meet with the Legal Bureau prior to effectuating an arrest, the SVD team knew of Mr. Weinstein’s influence, which he himself flaunted, and saw the writing on the wall with the newest directive from DA Cy Vance to stand down on the arrest. Mr. Turkin advised that with the recorded admission of guilt and the corroborative evidence they had accumulated, NYPD had established more than the requisite probable cause for arrest. In fact, he agreed the case could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Two hours later, SVD Detective Williams met with DANY Sex Crimes Bureau Chief Martha Bashford. Also present were SVD Sergeant Keri Thompson, another DANY prosecutor named Brandon Tracy, Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez, and Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s attorney at the time, David Godosky. At this meeting, Bureau Chief Bashford interviewed Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez, who remained consistent as always.
The following week, on April 7, 2015, Bureau Chief Bashford met Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez at her attorney Mr. Godosky’s office to interrogate her again. During the meeting. Bashford asked, in an accusatory fashion, about the “bunga bunga” party from 2010, and about a lawsuit Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez had purportedly filed in Italy at that time. The information Bashford asked about was all supplied by Mr. Weinstein’s team. None of the information about Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez should have deterred a prosecution because none of it actually created doubt about Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s credibility or account of Mr. Weinstein’s actions, which he admitted to on a wire.
Despite this, on April 10, 2015, Bureau Chief Bashford called NYPD Lieutenant Morange and stated that “DA Vance will not go any further with this case, and I agree with that decision.” On that day, the matter was deemed closed.
Incredibly, the discontinuation of the case was not enough; instead, all records of its existence were expunged. Some background on NYPD’s record-keeping systems is warranted here. The NYPD has a program called “Enterprise Case Management System (“ECMS”) which is where every single file on an investigation is deposited. While investigating a case, detectives upload paperwork or other files given to them, such as a complaint report (“61”) that a responding police officer creates, or photographs of a crime scene. They will also upload their own paperwork like the DD5’s they draft, which are essentially memorialized writings logging every action they take in a case. Within the ECMS program, detectives will also note the status of the case, all the way through to the end, where they can close the case out with an arrest, or with the closure of the case without an arrest.
By design, nothing is ever truly permanent in this program even if it sits with a “closed” status. A case can always be reopened if it closed without an arrest; likewise, a case could be sealed if an arrest was made that was later deemed unlawful. The only way a case is irretrievably closed is in the latter scenario, where an illegal arrest and booking was made and a judge orders it sealed. Then, the matter is – for lack of a better term – expunged, and sealed.
Mr. Weinstein was never officially arrested and booked. Therefore, his case in NYPD’s database would still “live” in ECMS, in a closed, but viewable, position. The Deputy Commissioner of Information Technology at the NYPD at that time was Jessica Tisch, who is now NYPD’s Police Commissioner. Deputy Commissioner Tisch directed the ECMS vendor who reported directly to her to seal the Weinstein investigation file. Aside from protecting Mr. Weinstein, concealing the evidence also benefitted Commissioner Bratton, Chief Boyce and DANY Bureau Chief Bashford, since anyone who saw all the evidence collected in the case would likely wonder why it incongruously ended without an arrest and prosecution.
Thus, over the course of the following week of April 13, 2015, Mr. Weinstein got away with it all in the appalling final acts of corruption by DANY and the NYPD. DANY Bureau Chief Martha Bashford deceived Deputy Chief Osgood, claiming that she obtained a Supreme Court sealing and destruction order for Mr. Weinstein’s case, and that therefore the matter had to be sealed in NYPD’s ECMS database. No such sealing and destruction order existed, Deputy Chief Osgood would discover years later; and of course it did not exist, because there was no case properly in front of the court, since no criminal court complaint or indictment were ever filed. However, Bureau Chief Bashford insisted that the order required the sealing of the matter, even though, as explained above, no such sealing function even existed in the ECMS database, since an arrest was never made. One would be unable to “seal” a case in the system without a booking and subsequent arrest number. Thus, to further the conspiracy, NYPD Information Technology staff created a mechanism within the ECMS system to seal all the evidence in a non-arrest case, making its status permanent and preventing anyone from seeing the case materials.
On April 29, 2015, the NYPD case was officially closed and sealed in the ECMS database. The case was categorized as a “C4” closure, which is code for all investigative leads being exhausted. The note stated, “upon further investigation and conferral with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, it was determined by Sex Crimes Bureau Chief Martha Bashford that the victim in this case did not prove credible. . . The crime reported cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, therefore no arrest will be made.” To this day, the only case that ever benefitted from this function is Mr. Weinstein’s.
The Failed / “Paused” 2018 Cuomo Investigation
In March of 2018, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to conduct an investigation into DANY’s handling of this matter [10]. Governor Cuomo’s order came after it simply became impossible to ignore the myriad credible stories from scores of women publicly accusing Mr. Weinstein of sexual assault in 2017, Ronan Farrow‘s bombshell investigative report in The New Yorker detailing the accounts of thirteen of Mr. Weinstein‘s victims (including Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez) [11] and a very public finger-pointing blame game by the NYPD and DANY over why Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s case was not pursued [12]. In no uncertain terms, Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez preceded and helped catalyze the #MeToo movement. Unfortunately, despite her heroism, accountability for the law enforcement brass whose sworn duty it was to protect her - and other women - from Mr. Weinstein’s predatory acts, slipped through the cracks again.
It is believed that the investigators handling the 2018 investigation into DANY were making strong progress when suddenly in June of 2018, Governor Cuomo quietly called for a “temporary” halt in the investigation [13]. The proffered reason for the suspension was that Mr. Weinstein was being prosecuted by DANY on newer sexual assault charges at that time, and any investigation into DANY’s handling of Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s case could tarnish the pending prosecution. There are many reasons we believe this excuse was pretextual [14] and we strongly encourage the Southern District to look into why the Attorney General actually paused its investigation. That said, should the pause truly be temporary, and actually linked to Mr. Weinstein’s other prosecutions, we are encouraged that said prosecution is nearing its conclusion, as Mr. Weinstein is currently on trial in Manhattan. Thus, there should be no reason once trial concludes for the Southern District to pick up where the Attorney General had left off, and investigate both the NYPD and DANY’s handling of this matter.
Our request comes after former NYPD SVD Deputy Chief Michael Osgood conducted his own tireless investigation into the shameful cover-up that occurred. Deputy Chief Osgood was ultimately pushed out of the NYPD for his vocal disapproval of the cover-up, and therefore his private investigation, though tenacious, was conducted with limited resources and without the power to take action once substantiated. Thus, we are demanding a full, official and transparent investigation, followed by appropriate accountability.
We are, and will remain, ready to meet with representatives from your Office to turn over former Deputy Chief Osgood’s investigative file and discuss its findings. We will cooperate fully with your investigation. You may contact me at any time to make arrangements.
Sincerely,
Sarena Townsend
Attorney for Ambra Battilana-Gutierrez
Citations:
A partial transcript and audio of the most relevant parts of the controlled meet can be found here: https://www.newsweek.com/full-transcript-harvey-weinstein-accuser-tried-turn-down-his-advances-12-times-681711. Notably, the only reason this audio exists is because Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez recorded the interaction on her own cell phone. While the wire recordings were sealed by NYPD, Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez’s cell phone remained in her possession, and so did the recording.
Lappin’s LinkedIn page confirms his employment as Director of TV Production and International Sales at The Weinstein Company from September 2013-December 2017: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-lappin-63596828/.
A former investigator who worked for Mr. Weinstein admitted this to Frontline: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/n-y-governor-orders-investigation-into-das-handling-of-weinstein-case/
This phrase is commonly used to describe conversations had with top DANY executives, and usually the District Attorney himself; in this case, DA Cy Vance.
https://pagesix.com/2015/03/30/harvey-weinstein-accused-of-groping-woman/
A formal investigation – discussed later in this memo – established that a joint investigation was, in fact, conducted by both DANY and Weinstein’s attorneys.
https://pagesix.com/2018/08/29/cuomo-suspends-probe-into-cy-vances-handling-of-weinstein-case/