Fabrizio Lombardo: Former Miramax exec and friend of Harvey Weinstein accused of raping model Sara Ziff at NYC hotel
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY: Sara Ziff, a former model has alleged that ex-Miramax executive and Harvey Weinstein's close friend Fabrizio Lombardo, raped her in 2001. She claimed that he convinced her to attend a fake meeting at an upscale hotel in New York City when she was just 19 years old. At that time Lombardo who headed Miramax in Italy, and Europe, lured her by saying that they had a meeting scheduled with Weinstein, and his brother Bob, at the Mercer Hotel. As per a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit filed late Thursday, April 6, Ziff was then sexually assaulted.
“Earlier that night, Lombardo invited the New York woman — some 20 years his junior — to a screening of ‘Black Hawk Down’ at the Miramax office in Tribeca, where Weinstein and another young woman were also present", reads the court document.
Lombardo invited Ziff for a drink at the SoHo hotel, where he told Ziff that Weinstein will be there and the other woman who came for an audition would join them as well. The court papers also mentioned that Lombardo told her that there is a possibility of Bob Weinstein coming along. The former model accepted the invitation thinking it will be a good career opportunity, reports NY Post.
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'Mr Lombardo would not stop'
“But Lombardo led Ziff straight to the hotel penthouse, where an uncomfortable Ziff ‘kept her distance, smoking cigarettes by the window,” as per filed suit. The Italian man started rubbing her thigh and the victim pushed his hand away while telling him she had a boyfriend. “But Mr Lombardo would not stop,” the suit charges. Lombardo pulled Ziff onto the bed, got on top of her, and raped her — without a condom — despite Ziff saying ‘No’ several times, as per court papers.
'She feared that Mr Lombardo would retaliate'
It adds, Ziff 'was so traumatized that she could not speak about the rape for several years afterward,' the filing says. The victim continued to meet Lombardo for other meetings afterward because “she feared that if she did not, Mr Lombardo would retaliate against her by using his powerful connections in the modeling and acting industries — including with Mr Weinstein — to deny her work at an early stage in her career,” the suit claims. Ziff is suing Lombardo, Weinstein, Miramax, and Buena Vista International, and the production companies’ parent company the Walt Disney Company for undisclosed damages, as per her lawsuit.