Harvey Weinstein has asked a federal judge to dismiss Ashley Judd’s defamation suit against him, according to court documents obtained by CNN.
Weinstein claims that Judd suggested she would consider letting him touch her if she ever won an Academy Award for work in one of his films.
Judd’s attorney, Theodore J. Boutrous, said in a statement to CNN on Thursday that Weinstein’s arguments were “baseless” and “offensive.”
In an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, broadcast shortly after the first allegations of assault and misconduct against Weinstein were published by The New York Times in October, Judd said Weinstein asked her to a meeting in his hotel room in 1997, where after repeated attempts to pressure her into sex, she convinced him to let her go.
“He kept coming at me with all this other stuff, and finally I just said, ‘When I win an Oscar in one of your movies, okay?'” Judd told Sawyer. “And he was like, ‘Yeah, when you get nominated.’ And I said, ‘No! When I win an Oscar.'” The comment, according to Judd, enabled her to leave the room.
“I fled, I just fled,” Judd said.
Judd filed a suit against Weinstein in April, claiming that he sabotaged her career after she denied his sexual advances. She claims this led to her being passed over for a role in the “Lord of the Rings” franchise.
Director Peter Jackson has acknowledged that Weinstein told him to “avoid” working with Judd.
Weinstein has denied that allegation.
Earlier this month, Weinstein pleaded not guilty to three additional sex crime charges in Manhattan Criminal Court. This brings the total of felony charges he’s facing to six. Through a spokesperson, Weinstein has repeatedly denied “any allegations of non-consensual sex.”
