HARVEY WEINSTEIN SUES US STELLANTIS UNIT AFTER JEEP ACCIDENT
par Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Archyde.com) – Former Hollywood movie producer Harvey Weinstein, currently in prison after being convicted of sex crimes, sued the U.S. unit of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, owned by Stellantis, on Tuesday over a car accident he had in 2019.
According to the lawsuit filed in a New York state court in Manhattan, Weinstein was wearing his seatbelt when, trying to avoid a deer, the brakes on the 2017 Jeep Wrangler he was driving failed, causing a crash. overturning of the vehicle.
Weinstein sought $5 million in damages, saying the Aug. 17, 2019 crash in Bedford, New York left him “catastrophically injured and crippled.”
He said FCA US LLC provided him with the “unreasonably dangerous” vehicle in exchange for product placement in one of his films.
Stellantis said in a statement that it intends to “vigorously defend (its) product” against these accusations.
Gary Kavulich, an attorney for Weinstein, disputed press reports suggesting his client was uninjured, saying Weinstein told authorities he was injured at the time of the crash.
“He is in constant pain,” Gary Kavulich said in a statement, adding that negotiations with FCA to avoid a lawsuit “took months and months.”
Weinstein, 70, is serving a 23-year prison sentence following his February 2020 conviction for sexual assault and rape.
(Report Jonathan Stempel; French version Federica Mileo, edited by Matthieu Protard and Jean Terzian)