While police in New York and London have rushed to investigate the explosive allegations brought forth in a New York Times exposé last week about film mogul Harvey Weinstein’s decades-long sexual misconduct, the Beverly Hills Police Department has yet to launch a probe into any of the accusations, saying no one has filed a complaint.
“We’ve had no contact with Mr. Weinstein,” Marc Coopwood, assistant chief of the Beverly Hills PD told TheWrap Thursday. “No one has come forward with a complaint.”
A Times investigation has rocked the posh Beverly Hills community after the paper published several accounts of women alleging that Weinstein, the co-founder of The Weinstein Company, had settled at least eight cases with women who said they were sexually harassed by Weinstein. A followup investigation by The New Yorker included accounts from multiple women who claimed Weinstein raped them. Many of the alleged incidents were said to have taken place at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, which would fall under the BHPD’s jurisdiction.
But the police department said it does not go on “fishing expeditions” and would not be “taking any action right now” because the department is “reactionary.”
“We wouldn’t even know who to talk to,” Coopwood said. “No one has had contact with us at all.”
The BHPD stands in stark contrast to London and New York police departments who are investigating Weinstein as the scandal surrounding the disgraced producer continues to grow.
The NYPD told TheWrap in a statement it is conducting a review of the allegations despite the fact that “no filed complaints have been identified.”
“Based on information referenced in published news reports the NYPD is conducting a review to determine if there are any additional complaints relating to the Harvey Weinstein matter,” a spokesperson for the NYPD told TheWrap in a statement. “No filed complaints have been identified as of this time and as always, the NYPD encourages anyone who may have information pertaining to this matter to call the CrimeStoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS.”
Bill Stanton, former NYPD officer, told TheWrap it’s up to each police department to decide whether or not to investigate the matter on their own, without having received an official complaint,
“My guess is this is a political calculation,” he said.
The Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills came up in several of the stories related to both The New York Times and The New Yorker. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow told The New York Times that when she was 22 years old, Weinstein hired her for the lead in the Jane Austen adaptation “Emma.” Before shooting began, he summoned her to his suite at the Peninsula for a work meeting that ended with Weinstein “placing his hands on her and suggesting they head to the bedroom for massages.”
The reports of Weinstein’s misconduct continue to roll out. On Thursday, actress Claire Forlani revealed on that The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow approached her while reporting the story, but “some close men around me” told her not to talk.
“Today I sit here feeling some shame, like I’m not supporting other women,” Forlani wrote on Twitter. “You see, nothing happened to me with Harvey, by that I mean, I escaped 5 times. I had two Peninsula hotel meetings in the evening with Harvey and all I remember was I ducked, dived and ultimately got out there without getting slobbered over, well just a bit. Yes, massage was suggested.”
“Ted” actress Jessica Barth said she met Weinstein at a 2011 Golden Globes party where he invited her to a business meeting, also at the Peninsula. When she arrived at the hotel, Weinstein offered to cast her in a film and demanded a naked massage. After she declined, Weinstein said she needed to lose weight “to compete with Mila Kunis.”
The Peninsula Hotel spokeswoman told TheWrap in a statement: “As a matter of our longstanding privacy policy, we do not comment on guests of The Peninsula Beverly Hills. Illegal activity brought to our attention is immediately reported to the authorities.”