Harvey Weinstein asks judge to dismiss sex assault charges, court papers say

Film mogul Harvey Weinstein asked a Manhattan state judge to dismiss sex-assault charges against him in a motion filed Friday that claimed one of his alleged victims exchanged more than 400 “warm, complimentary and solicitous” emails with him for four years after an alleged rape.

Among the correspondence, the motion said, shortly after the alleged March, 2013, rape the unnamed victim sent Weinstein one email saying , “[I] hope to see you sooner than later. . . ,” and others saying “It would be great to see you again, and catch up!” as well as “Miss you big guy.”

And as recently as last year, the unidentified rape accuser allegedly wrote, “I love you, always do. But I hate feeling like a booty call,” ending her message with a smiley face.

Defense lawyer Ben Brafman, in a statement accompanying the Manhattan Supreme Court motions, said, “These communications irrefutably reflect the true nature of this consensual intimate friendship, which never at any time included a forcible rape.”

Weinstein, 66, was charged this summer with sex crimes involving three women. He was accused of forcing aspiring actress Lucia Evans to have oral sex in 2004, forcing oral sex on a production assistant identified by Brafman as Mimi Haleyi in 2006, and two counts of rape for the 2013 incident in a Manhattan hotel room involving a woman identified as “CW-1.”

The motion contends that the office of District Attorney Cy Vance failed to present “exculpatory evidence” of the long-term relationship with the woman to grand jurors, and urges dismissal because of a “false impression” that sexual contact ended at the time of the alleged rape.

“What is apparent instead is that the prosecutors already knew that CW-1 and Mr. Weinstein had a long-term, consensual, intimate relationship at the time of the alleged rape and that it continued for years after,” the filing said.

Among other emails cited in the motion, which were obtained through the Delaware court overseeing the Weinstein Co.’s bankruptcy, the woman wrote to Weinstein in August, 2013, five months after the alleged rape, “I was hoping for some time privately with you to share the direction I am going in life and catch up because its been awhile.”

That same month, she allegedly wrote, “I got a new number. Just wanted you to have it. Hope you are well and call me anytime, always good to hear your voice.” And in emails the next year, she wrote, “There is no one else I would enjoy catching up with that understands me quite like you” and suggested introducing Weinstein to her mother.

Weinstein’s legal papers concede that rape can occur in long-term abusive relationships, but say Weinstein saw the woman only occasionally and she was not cornered by circumstance. “It was not a relationship in which CW-1 was trapped by matrimony, employment or financial need,” the motion said.

Weinstein, who has been accused of abuse of power and sexual assault in dozens of published accounts since actress Ashley Judd went public in a New Yorker story last year, is out on $1 million bail. He faces up to life in prison if convicted. No trial date has been set.

In addition to the emails, Weinstein’s motion seeks dismissal for failure to satisfy the statute of limitations, lack of specificity as to when the Evans incident occurred, and on other grounds. Vance’s office declined to comment.