Time's Up Wants to Know Why the NYC Case Against Harvey Weinstein Went Nowhere

In October, a source within the NYPD told the New Yorker that the department gathered more than enough evidence to prosecute Weinstein in 2015—including, rather damningly, a secret recording made when Battilana agreed to meet Weinstein while wearing a wire, in which the disgraced mogul admits to grabbing her breasts, attempts to badger and intimidate her into going to his hotel room, and tells her that he is “used to” groping women. Despite all of this, though, Weinstein was never arrested; after two weeks of investigations, the DA declined to press charges.

In a recent New York magazine report, writer Kathy Dobie pulls the curtain back on how he may have been able to avoid being prosecuted: According to several sources, police believe the office of District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. “was systematically working to derail the investigation” and to discredit Battilana. Their alleged efforts seemed to have worked. After being aggressively questioned by investigators from Vance’s office—who accusingly asked if she was a sex worker, and intimated that they would heavily scrutinize her personal life during the course of the investigation—Battilana “became afraid” and “began to cry,” said a sergeant from the Special Victims Division (SVD) who worked on her case.

After the case was dropped, Batillana, who had been smeared in the press as an unreliable gold-digger, reportedly went on to sign an ironclad non-disclosure agreement with Weinstein. Three months later, Vance reportedly accepted a $10,000 campaign donation from one of Weinstein’s lawyers.

In the wake of the New York magazine report, Time’s Up—the legal defense organization that formed in the aftermath of the Weinstein revelations—is calling on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to launch an independent investigation into the way District Attorney Cyrus Vance and his office handled Battilana’s case.

In a letter released last night, Time’s Up raised concerns about the “negative relationship” between the DA’s office and SVD, suggesting that even the perception of mistrust “makes it even less likely that victims who have been assaulted by rich or powerful men will be willing to come forward and that their assailants will be prosecuted and convicted.”

“Reports that District Attorney Cyrus Vance could have been improperly influenced by Mr. Weinstein and/or his representatives, and that senior officials within the DA’s office may have sought to intimidate Battilana are particularly disturbing and merit investigation,” the letter reads. “Similarly, reports that the New York Police Department chose to isolate Battilana from Vance’s staff because they feared his office was actively working to discredit her story demand immediate scrutiny.”

Josie Torielli, the assistant director of intervention programs at the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault (NYCAASA), agrees. “When everyone’s on the same team—when you have victim advocates and the police department and the DA’s office all functioning the way they should be and cooperating with each other—that’s obviously an ideal outcome for victims,” she tells Broadly. “When one part of that system falls apart, then that’s when victims really lose, and that’s when justice fails. When a victim makes the decision to turn their story over, whether that’s to an advocate or to the police department or to the prosecutor’s office, they’re trusting that those systems are going to do right by them.”

The DA’s office, for its part, insists it handled the case appropriately. One of Vance’s senior advisors told New York that they weren’t involved in the sting that set Weinstein up to be recorded and denied ever questioning Battilana in an aggressive manner. In a statement released today, a spokesman for the Manhattan DA's office said their investigation of Weinstein was ongoing, but noted: “The idea that our Office would shrink from the challenge of prosecuting a powerful man is belied by our daily work and unparalleled record of success on behalf of sexual assault survivors."

Mary Haviland, the executive director of NYCAASA, tells Broadly sometimes a prosecutor might withhold facts for the integrity of a case, and it’s impossible for the general public to know the whole story. But, she adds, appearances matter—especially for sexual assault survivors who may decide not to come forward with their story after seeing an alleged perpetrator admit his actions but still go unpunished.

Moreover, Haviland continues, it’s troubling that the police believed Battilana’s allegation was credible yet couldn’t take the case forward. And she points to one particularly damning detail from the report: that Weinstein hired defense attorneys who were linked to Vance’s office. This sends a chilling message, she says. “There is an appearance that if you hire somebody who’s a colleague of the DA, that you might be able to get your charges dropped or lowered or manipulated.” The outcome of a case, she says, should be dependent upon the actual facts of the case, not “on who you know, or what kind of attorneys you hire.”