Italian director and actress Asia Argento reportedly paid actor-musician Jimmy Bennett $380,000 in exchange for not suing her after she allegedly sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room in 2013. At the time of the incident, Argento was 37 years old and Bennett was still a minor at 17 years old. California’s age of consent is 18.
The payment took place just months after Argento first made public her accusations against Weinstein in October 2017.
The claims and evidence of payment were in legal documents arranged between both their lawyers. The documents were sent to the NYT through encrypted email by an unidentified party and included a selfie from May 9, 2013, of the pair lying in bed together. They had worked together before in a 2004 film titled “The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things,” which Argento also wrote and directed. Bennett played Argento’s son in the movie.
After the NYT report was published, Rose McGowan, a fellow critic of Weinstein and an ally of Argento, publicly distanced herself from Argento in an Aug. 20 tweet.
Argento’s agency representative didn’t respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
The 2013 incident was so traumatizing to Bennett that it affected his work, income, and mental health, according to a notice of intent to sue from Bennett’s lawyer, Gordon K. Sattro, the NYT reported. The notice asked for $3.5 million in damages “for the intentional infliction of emotional distress, lost wages, assault and battery.”
“His feelings about that day were brought to the forefront recently, when Ms. Argento took the spotlight as one of the many victims of Harvey Weinstein,” Sattro wrote.
