2023.0407
In New York State Supreme Court on Thursday, a former model filed a lawsuit alleging that she was raped by Fabrizio Lombardo, a onetime associate of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. The suit also named Weinstein, Disney, and Miramax as defendants, saying they "were negligent or recklessly indifferent to the harm that Lombardo inflicted."
At the time, Lombardo was an executive with Miramax, the film studio co-founded by Weinstein. The former movie mogul is currently serving 39 years in prison for sex crimes in New York and California.
Weinstein once credited Lombardo with saving his life and reportedly served as best man at Lombardo's 2003 wedding. Lombardo was head of Miramax Italy.
She alleges that in 2001, when she was 19, she was raped by Lombardo after a film screening. "Mr. Lombardo invited Ms. Ziff to go to a nearby hotel with him on the pretense that they would be joined by Harvey Weinstein and another young woman who attended the screening,"
The lawsuit says that instead it was "a trap set by Mr. Lombardo to get Ms. Ziff alone and rape her."