*Allegedly.
"Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances ... Mr. Weinstein has begun counseling, has listened to the community and is pursuing a better path. Mr. Weinstein is hoping that if he makes enough progress, he will be given a second chance."

I'll just leave this here:

Report: Weinstein Hired Agents To Investigate And Suppress Accusations Against Him
Kantor: The durability of [#MeToo] has been staggering. It's not even a news story anymore. It's like a permanent reality. Megan and I have been reporting on the Jeffrey Epstein situation all summer and it evokes a lot of the same feelings as Weinstein. You know, how big can this possibly be? How many people were affected? ... And so I think this is something we're going to be living through for a long time. I know there's a lot of controversy about solutions and how to address what's been brought up, but you can't address a problem that you can't see. And we're still beginning to just see the problem fully.

A report in The New Yorker says Harvey Weinstein hired an Israeli intelligence firm to collect information on the allegations against him.
Chris Pizzello/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

In 2017, New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey broke the story that ended Weinstein's alleged reign of terror and helped to ignite the #MeToo movement[.] Weinstein knew early on that the Times was after him, they write.

As Ronan Farrow reported in the New Yorker, Weinstein employed the secretive Black Cube firm, staffed with ex-Mossad agents, to collect information on journalists digging into the story and to intimidate and track their sources (Black Cube operatives used false identities to track women with allegations, and also reporters seeking to expose the story."). Weinstein allegedly offered Black Cube an extra $300,000 to supply "intelligence which will directly contribute to the efforts to completely stop the [New York Times] Article from being published at all in any shape or form." But Weinstein's most effective tool for stalling, Kantor and Twohey write in She Said, was one he had employed for decades: nondisclosure agreements. Women who allegedly experienced harassment or abuse at Weinstein's hands promised to stay silent in exchange for payouts: "This was a way to get paid and get on with their lives. The alternative, taking this kind of lawsuit to court, was punishing."

Last fall, Weinstein began hiring private security firms to collect information on the women who might speak out against him. One firm was Kroll, a major corporate intelligence firm. Another was Black Cube, a much newer company founded by two former Israeli intelligence officers, Dan Zorella and Avi Yanus, and which touts its staff of "veterans of elite units" from Israeli intelligence. Black Cube said its team would include a project manager, a legal advisor, "avatar operators" fluent in media analysis, linguists, an investigative journalist, a full-time agent ("Anna"), and operations experts with "extensive experience in social engineering." It also promised the support of its board and advisors: "businessmen in key positions in Israel and abroad" and former heads of Israeli intelligence forces.

Another intelligence firm, PSOPS, sent Weinstein research on Farrow, Wallace, Times reporter Jodi Kantor, and New York editor Adam Moss. Weinstein had hired Kroll to collect information on the late journalist David Carr back in the early 2000s, Farrow reports, and Carr's widow says he "believed that he was being surveilled, though he didn't know by whom."

The mission failed, of course. The Times published its story and The New Yorker published its own (reported by Farrow). Now police in New York are building a case that Weinstein raped an actress there seven years ago.

It's not known how much money Weinstein paid out to to all the firms he hired. Bergman, the Israeli journalist, says articles like the one you're reading are good business development for such firms – suggesting they'll do whatever possible for their clients, and they'll bring significant capabilities to the task.

Boies defended his actions, telling Farrow that he didn't think it was a conflict of interest to hire Black Cube to work on stopping the Times story, while he was also representing the paper in a libel suit. He said he never pressured any news outlets, and that Weinstein was at that point denying the allegations. "Given what was known at the time, I thought it was entirely appropriate to investigate precisely what he was accused of doing, and to investigate whether there were facts that would rebut those accusations," he said. The Times feels differently.

It's proof, Bergman says, that sometimes even the most highly trained staff and whole lot of money "cannot stop a truthful and profound and deep investigative journalism."