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Plus: An unlikely rape counselor emerges
the true crime that's worth your time
The Hollywood Reporter has a real barn-burner of a longread on longtime TV writer/alleged rapist Eric Weinberg, in which a lot of folks — including the co-creator of beloved-by-many comfort watch Ted Lasso — come off looking pretty shitty. It’s via Samuel Braslow (a freelancer for THR) and Kim Masters, an editor-at-large for THR who has covered countless misconduct and assault cases in her tenure at the pub, and who has clearly had it based on her recent tweets (more on that in a moment).
I’ll warn you now that it’s not pretty: there are multiple accounts of assaults and victim-blaming within the piece. It’s also reminiscent of a lot of the reporting following Harvey Weinstein’s arrest, during which scores of bold-faced names said on the record that they knew if his reputation as an alleged assailant, but still worked with him.
This snip distills a lot of the story, and makes clear that while people like Weinstein and Weinberg are without a doubt the alleged bad actors in the situation, there’s a system and environment at play in Hollywood that allowed them to get away with their alleged acts for a very, very long time:
The saga shines a spotlight on a permissive culture that allowed Weinberg to keep working despite mounting signs of trouble. In at least one case, he was hired by producers who had previously been involved with Scrubs and knew that he had been let go for misconduct. His agency, ICM, also continued to work with him for years, even after primary agent Chris Silbermann — now at CAA — stepped away from him after learning that his client had been fired for his behavior. Even after his conduct led to his dismissal in 2007 from his job on Showtime’s Californication after a single season, junior ICM agents landed him gigs. Through CAA, which acquired the agency in June, ICM declined to comment.
Weinberg’s longevity raises questions about what kind of behavior was accepted not only by his agency but in certain writers rooms. Though it was a different time, legislation barring sexual harassment — including conduct that creates a hostile work environment — had long been on the books. The definition of harassment in a writers room, however, has never been clear. Entertainment is a creative business, and it is accepted that writers must have the freedom to express raunchy or off-color ideas — a principle reinforced by the dismissal of a 2004 sexual-harassment lawsuit filed by an assistant in the Friends writers room. Several women who worked with Weinberg after that decision say they believe that the ruling emboldened men who were inclined to harass women.
Some of the folks named in the THR story as aware of Weinberg’s behavior — though not, I should make clear, his alleged decades-long pattern of alleged serial rape — include Amy Sherman-Palladino (Gilmore Girls, etc.), Michael Poryes (That’s So Raven, Hannah Montana) and Scrubs creator and showrunner Bill Lawrence, who went on to co-create Ted Lasso and worked with Weinburg twice. From THR:
Multiple sources say Scrubs creator and showrunner Bill Lawrence — who would go on to co-create Apple’s Ted Lasso — was no great fan of Weinberg personally. Yet one staffer recalls Lawrence did not intervene although he witnessed Weinberg engaging in behavior that this person considered inappropriate: Weinberg mimicking a female writer masturbating and having an orgasm in front of her. Through a spokesperson, Lawrence says he does not recall the incident and denies he was present when Weinberg fondled anyone or bragged about sexual conquests.
In 2004 and 2005, Lawrence co-wrote and executive produced a pilot of Weinberg’s titled Confessions of a Dog, a sitcom about a self-identified “dog” in his 30s who sleeps with lots of women. It did not get picked up.
Other folks, like Bill Maher, with whom Weinberg worked for nearly a decade, expressed shock at his arrest, saying through a spokesperson that he “of course had no idea [Weinberg] was doing what he’s been accused of doing.” (Perhaps unsurprising pull quote: “A New York bartender at the time recalls Maher frequenting her bar with Weinberg, noting the duo’s ‘creepy’ behavior toward women.”)
Others, like former Friends scribe Jeff Astrof, who allegedly fired writer Monica Piper after she stood up to Weinberg, allegedly saying he fired her because she “reminded [him] of his mother,” declined comment.
Still others spoke under the condition of anonymity — which, when we live in the world where the defense attorney in a Hollywood rape case calls the alleged victim/wife of California’s governor a “bimbo,” can we really blame them? — saying things like “he was the shittiest and he was the most brazen. When I found out, I was disgusted, and it explained so much” and “Eric was different. He was like a predator.”
As I noted before, this is clearly all stuff Masters has heard before, and her tweets promoting the report show a decided level of exhaustion at the sisyphean beast that is the #MeToo beat.
(Hang in there, Kim! You are doing the lord’s work!)
Did Harvey Weinstein’s arrest do any thing to improve the culture of silence around Bad Men in filmmaking? I don’t know, nor do I know that Weinberg’s arrest will have an impact on TV people, and/or the talent agency business. I mean, there’s a coffee company in my city that covered up alleged sexual assaults and harassment from its top folks for years; now the super-progressive bookstore down the street from my house “proudly” serves their beans so who the hell knows.
Maybe the best we can hope for is that this game of whack-a-mole continues, and that brave folks will continue to speak out when their bosses won’t. Or maybe, just maybe, some of these folks who admit they knew Weinberg was a creep can band together and dramatize this case, making it accessible and understandable to a mass audience as a way to enact real change (wait until Thanksgiving, when your aunt from Topeka unfurls baller-level dinnertime conversation on testing tech and Silicon Valley bullshit thanks to The Dropout). It could, perhaps, be a balm for any nagging consciences, too. What’s Amy Sherman-Palladino up to these days? Anyway, read the story, it’s a meticulously reported indictment of an entire industry, done extremely well. — EB
Speaking of your imaginary Theranos-expert aunt…According to The Ankler, Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The Big Short) has been “embedded with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried for the past six months,” per an email from CAA agent Matthew Snyder that was sent to potential buyers for the nascent book.
I know, you have your finger on the scroll button right now because you either don’t care about crypto and/or see how this is a story that would appeal to you, or you do care about crypto and are sick of the saga/watching your money dissipate. And if you are either of these things, I get it, but stick with me, but I think this really could work — and it ties into my suggestion for the Weinberg adaptation, above.
Lewis (who, incidentally, is married to 80s MTV icon Tabitha Soren, a detail that always delights me) has a well-deserved reputation for making the seemingly impenetrable (for example, the mortgage meltdown of 2008) entertaining and accessible, and the subsequent big-screen adaptations are usually pretty solid, too.
I could write a novel here on my ambivalence about Brad Pitt properties (talking about Moneyball) at this point in his reputation management cycle or how tiresome I find Adam McKay’s (The Big Short) mansplainy tone, but you’re not here for that — I’ll just say that if we’re already jumping ahead to the inevitable big screen version of his book on the collapse of allegedly fraudulent crypto exchange FTX and the rise and fall of Bankman-Fried, I’d hope that a less-expected director might take the wheel to counteract that smug tone that a Lewis adaption to film often takes on.
Meanwhile, if you want to catch up on the investigation into FTX, the NYT has a comprehensive report that includes an interview with Bankman-Fried. Here’s the first couple grafs to get you in the door:
In less than a week, the cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried went from industry leader to industry villain, lost most of his fortune, saw his $32 billion company plunge into bankruptcy and became the target of investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department.
But in a wide-ranging interview on Sunday that stretched past midnight, he sounded surprisingly calm. “You would’ve thought that I’d be getting no sleep right now, and instead I’m getting some,” he said. “It could be worse.”
The empire built by Mr. Bankman-Fried, who was once compared to titans of finance like John Pierpont Morgan and Warren Buffett, collapsed last week after a run on deposits left his crypto exchange, FTX, with an $8 billion shortfall, forcing the firm to file for bankruptcy. The damage has rippled across the industry, destabilizing other crypto companies and sowing widespread distrust of the technology.
Even if you don’t have an NYT subscription, you can read the piece via this link — that’s right, friends, this story is good enough that I’m using one of my gift articles on you all! Even if you seriously do not give a shit about crypto and think it’s all a semi-criminal scheme you plan on ignoring until it goes away, it’s really looking like crypto’s demise will have an impact on the overall economy. Understanding the alleged fraud now might not completely shield us from that impact, but at least we’ll know what we’re negotiating. — EB
Finally, a couple updates on cases we’ve been following:
Elizabeth Holmes should go to prison for 15 years and pay $804 million, feds demand [East Bay Times]
Holmes is set to be sentenced on November 18. Her defense team sent a memo last week that said she “was not motivated by personal gain or greed,” it was accompanied by notes of support from folks like Sen. Cory Booker, who said, “I still believe that she holds onto the hope that she can make contributions to the lives of others, and that she can, despite mistakes, make the world a better place.”
Booker’s federal colleagues appear not to share his belief, as prosecutors argued in a sentencing memo sent this week. Per our pal Ethan Baron:
Davila will probably sentence Holmes based mostly on the charges that led to her conviction, rather than on the patient harms and total investor losses, said criminal defense lawyer Carrie Cohen, who has followed Holmes’ case from New York. The judge is likely to consider Holmes’ child and pregnancy when determining a sentence, but may still put her away for five to 10 years, Cohen said. “She committed a very serious crime and did so for a very long period of time and through multiple acts of deception on multiple people and entities,” Cohen said. “That has to be deterred.”
Prosecutors demand in the memo that Holmes pay the eye-popping amount of $804 million to cover the entirety of investors’ losses, but acknowledge that “the amount of restitution may dwarf Holmes’ ability to pay.”
Holmes, in her sentencing memo, said she had gone bankrupt and did not have money for restitution. Investigators have determined, prosecutors say, that Holmes has “modest assets” that are outweighed by $450,000 in loans taken out to pay her $500,000 settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and her “liability for legal fees in excess of $30 million.” The investigators could not find out whether any third parties are liable or expected to pay Holmes’ legal fees.
There’s an interesting note in her defense team’s memo I also wanted to call out before moving on, something that I want to believe is sincere: “After her conviction, Ms. Holmes became certified as a rape crisis counselor and advocate, and has spent over five hundred hours volunteering in support of sexual assault survivors, including victims of domestic violence,” her defense team wrote.
I do think her claim that she was sexually assaulted while a student at Stanford is credible, and I don’t find the possibility that her relationship with Balwani had an exploitative element all that hard to imagine. (Your imaginary aunt, of whom I am growing quite fond, might disagree! Tell me what she says after y’all finish dinner next Thursday.) What if Holmes truly follows through on that work, and offers herself up as an advocate while in prison? Wouldn’t that be something for The Dropout, Season 2? — EB
Federal Judge Dismisses Barstool Sports Founder Dave Portnoy’s Defamation Lawsuit Over Reports of Sexual Misconduct, Violence [Law & Crime]
I have worked at multiple places that spiked reporting on claims against Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, because the level of harassment he and his fans have unleashed against journalists who present anything but praise is more than most folks can happily manage. That might be why you didn’t immediately see that his defamation suit against Insider — which published multiple articles about claims against the media magnate — was dismissed last week.
Snip:
In Monday’s ruling, Chief U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor said that Portnoy had failed to “clear [the] high bar” of showing Insider acted with actual malice, which is a necessary element of proving a defamation claim against a public figure.
Portnoy had argued that Insider published its reports on dates that matched the earnings announcements of Penn National Gaming, which owns a 36% stake in Barstool. He also said that Insider employees allegedly contacted Barstool advertisers shortly following publication of the first report and encouraged them to stop doing business with Portnoy.
“Such allegations of animosity or ill will, however, do not suffice to plead actual malice,” wrote Saylor, a George W. Bush appointee.
“Our reporting on Dave Portnoy was careful, fair, and accurate. We are pleased and gratified that the judge dismissed his complaint,” Insider said in a statement. Barstool and Portnoy haven’t responded to media requests for comment, and I find Portnoy’s twitter feed too odious to scroll through to see if he said anything there. — EB
Wednesday on Best Evidence: Why we fight (about true-crime cases at the holidays).
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