Weinstein accuser Ambra Gutierrez wants NYPD, DA probed in alleged cover-up

Yahoo

30-04-2025

NEW YORK — A lawyer representing Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez — who filed a police report in 2015 against Harvey Weinstein for groping her in his Tribeca office and watched as her allegations were rejected by the Manhattan DA's office — asked federal prosecutors in Manhattan Tuesday to look into the 'cover-up' and is claiming high-powered New Yorkers intervened on behalf of the now-disgraced mogul.
Based on the work of Michael Osgood, the NYPD chief who oversaw the detectives involved in the investigation, lawyer Serena Townsend argues the NYPD had the evidence to bust Weinstein in the first 24 hours — until higher-ranking police officials and others stepped in.
'In order to justify dismissing her claims and to cater to Weinstein, law enforcement exaggerated irrelevant aspects of her life and ignored the actual evidence that had been assembled,' said Townsend, a former prosecutor in the Brooklyn DA's sex crimes bureau.
'That's why a new investigation is necessary.'
Among others, Townsend's 11-page letter to Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton alleges former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was representing Weinstein, used his influence with then-Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce to upend the case.
Manhattan DA Cy Vance's sex crime chief Martha Bashford first approved an arrest of Weinstein, but then ordered detectives to back off hours later, the letter claims.
While Gutierrez's account of Weinstein grabbing her breasts and reaching under her skirt on a Tribeca 'casting couch' have been previously reported, the backstory of why Weinstein was not arrested despite what appeared to be a solid case has remained largely unclear.
The events occurred more than two years before Weinstein's role as a predator was uncovered by the New York Times and the New Yorker. A decade later, Osgood sees the case as a massive missed opportunity.
'This case was one of the best cases in terms of the quality of the investigation in the history of the NYPD. We basically had it wrapped up in the first 24 hours,' said Osgood, who served as chief of Special Victims from 2010 to 2018. 'Instead, there was a cover-up that caused extensive damage.'
Gutierrez told The News last week the fallout from the case has continued to damage her career.
'I lost years and years of my life because, back in 2015, they didn't believe me,' she said. 'I knew I was right, but my reputation got destroyed so much that it has been very difficult to rebuild.'
Clayton's office declined to comment.
Gutierrez, then 22, went with her modeling portfolio to Weinstein's office at the Tribeca Film Center on March 27, 2015, about 6 p.m., according to the account in the letter. On his couch, he asked her if her breasts were real and grabbed them, the letter states. She told him to stop and removed his hands. Weinstein put his hand up her skirt to her thigh and asked her for a kiss. She removed his hand and refused the kiss.
Gutierrez then fled. The encounter lasted less than 15 minutes.
She immediately told her manager and his girlfriend and the three of them went right away to file a report at the 9th Precinct, the letter states.
In all, five cops and detectives over the next few hours heard Gutierrez's account and witnessed her distressed demeanor, the letter states. At one point, the letter states, after she said she was filing a complaint about Weinstein, a female cop exclaimed, 'Not him again.'
Osgood ordered his detectives to have Gutierrez call Weinstein on a recorded line and to set up a recorded in-person meeting between the two — unusual steps in a misdemeanor case, but he was concerned about Weinstein's public stature. On the call, which took place about 11:30 p.m. that same night, Gutierrez asked Weinstein how her breasts felt, the letter states.
He said they were 'fine,' the letter states.
A controlled meeting was set for the next day at 5:30 p.m. at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. Osgood directed Lt. Austin Morange to call Bashford, the Manhattan DA's sex crimes chief and brief her, the letter states.
Gutierrez wore a wire and also recorded with her phone, the letter states. She asked him why he touched her breasts.
'Please, I'm sorry, I'm used to it,' he replied. Later he said, 'I will not do another thing to you.'
Parts of that recording were published two years later on the New Yorker website.
At 6:35 p.m., Morange and a sergeant told Weinstein to come with them to the 9th Precinct to be interviewed, the letter states. In the car, Weinstein declared he knew 'powerful people in government,' and threatened to call Commissioner Bratton.
Within just 24 hours of the incident, Osgood's detectives had Gutierrez's account repeated several times on the record, the two civilian witnesses to what she had told them, the accounts of the five police officers, and video of her fleeing the initial encounter.
They also had Weinstein making incriminating statements on the recorded call and in the recorded meeting.
'The evidence is overwhelming,' Osgood told The News. 'It's greater than in 99% of the misdemeanors I investigated where the DA agreed to an arrest and greater than in 94% of felonies where the DA agreed to an arrest.'
But then, as Townsend puts it, 'The case began to nosedive.'
Osgood had been trying to reach NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce for some 20 hours, the letter states. When Boyce called that Saturday evening, Boyce said not to arrest Weinstein. Osgood told Boyce that Weinstein was already in the car on the way to the 9th Precinct.
Boyce shouted, according to the letter, 'F—! Interview him and then cut him loose. I have to call Bratton back.'
At the precinct, Weinstein learned his accuser's name and immediately asked for a lawyer, ending the interview. Detectives then took Weinstein to his office. In the car, the letter states, Weinstein continued to verbally berate the detectives.
Two days later, on March 30, Osgood's detectives met with Bashford. Osgood says Bashford told them the evidence 'far exceeded the probable cause standard.' 'I don't see why you can't make an arrest,' Bashford told them, according to the letter.
That same morning, the letter states, Weinstein convened a meeting in his office which included Giuliani. The letter alleges Giuliani 'covertly' called Bratton that day and spoke with Boyce. At some point after that, Osgood said he spoke with Boyce, who questioned Gutierrez's motivation.
Osgood says he did not learn of this meeting or Giuliani's call until March 2018, three years later, when a Weinstein aide was interviewed by detectives as part of the second Weinstein investigation.
'(The aide) tells my guys in 2018 that Giuliani says, 'all right, I'm going to call Bill Bratton now,'' Osgood said in an interview.
Osgood says Boyce confirmed the Giuliani call in a conversation right before Boyce retired in April 2018. 'Boyce says Bratton called me and told me to call Giuliani,' Osgood says. 'But there's never any need for a chief of detectives to call a defendant's attorney. It's unacceptable.'
Reached Monday, Boyce questioned Osgood's recollection of events.
'It was clearly the Manhattan DA that didn't want to go forward,' he said. 'I was asked to call Giuliani. I don't remember by who. It was a brief call. I spoke to him for about two minutes, I asked for someone else, and I told that person the facts of the case and that we had probable cause to arrest. It was a good case.'
About 2 p.m., just a few hours after Bashford endorsed the arrest, she called Osgood's deputy, Morange, and said she had spoken with the '8th Floor' — the location of Vance's office — and to 'hold off' on arresting Weinstein, the letter states.
Very soon after that, a New York Post article appeared with a blind law enforcement quote saying the case was 'BS' and 'not going anywhere.' A 'source close to Weinstein' called it 'a blackmail attempt.' The story also reported without context Gutierrez then 18, was at a party five years earlier in 2010 thrown by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that included escorts.
'In one day, Mr. Weinstein's team was able to convince the DA to shut down Weinstein's imminent arrest and completely tarnish Ms. Battilana-Gutierrez's credibility,' Townsend writes in the letter.
Bashford, now the chair of the Defense Department's Advisory Committee on Investigation, Prosecution and Defense of Sexual Assault, could not be reached for comment.
But a former official with the DA's office who requested anonymity questioned the idea she was pressured into the decision.
'This office was the first to indict Weinstein and the first to convict him,' the official said. 'There was certainly no pressure exerted on (Bashford) by any external force. She is a remarkably skilled attorney who came to a conclusion after extensive review of the case. We make decisions on a case-by-case basis, and sometimes people are upset, but the conclusion is always based on the merits.'
Weinstein's lawyer, Arthur Aidala, blasted the accusations.
'It's a disgrace that the names of some of the heroes of New York City such as Commissioner Bratton and Mayor Giuliani are being dragged through the mud in this frivolous letter,' he said. 'District Attorney Vance has a reputation that highlights his integrity and honesty. He eventually did bring charges against Harvey Weinstein on which Mr. Weinstein is now standing trial. That fact alone flies in the face of the contents of this ridiculous letter.'
Bratton and Giuliani also could not be reached. Vance declined comment.
As the investigation wore on, Osgood ordered Gutierrez placed in a hotel not only, he says, because of the paparazzi and recurring press leaks, but also because he was concerned about both Vance's office and his NYPD superiors.
On April 2, Gutierrez was in a car with detectives when she learned from her roommates there were two DA investigators in their apartment interrogating them. The questions included: was Gutierrez a stripper or a prostitute, did she bring home strange men, the letter says.
Gutierrez began crying, and Osgood was irate when his detectives notified him.
'This is how I find out Bashford is doing a separate investigation, which is against protocol,' Osgood says. 'The NYPD conducts the investigation up to arraignment.
'But she wasn't also doing a background investigation on Weinstein. If you did, you would trip over his history of being a predator.'
For its part, the DA's office pushed back at the time, suggesting it was not notified of the controlled call and other 'proof issues.' Contacted for this story, the DA's office declined comment.
The next day, April 3, Osgood took the unusual step of bringing in an NYPD lawyer, Gregg Turkin, to review the strength of the evidence, the letter states. Turkin agreed there was more than probable cause to arrest Weinstein, Osgood says.
On April 3 and again on April 7, Bashford interviewed Gutierrez. In the latter interview, Bashford asked pointed questions about a so-called 'bunga bunga' party and about a lawsuit the model filed in Italy — none of which, Townsend writes, 'actually created doubt about her credibility or her account.'
But on April 10, a Friday, Bashford called Morange and told him the DA was declining to charge Weinstein and that she agreed with the decision. The call took a few seconds, Osgood says.
Gutierrez only learned of the decision from the media on the following Monday.
She was soon approached by Weinstein's lawyers offering a settlement if she signed a nondisclosure agreement. She said she only agreed to sign it after she'd learned the DA would not be going forward with the case and she was fearful of what might happen if she refused.
On April 20, 2015, she signed the NDA and accepted a $1 million payment.
In October 2017, the first blockbuster stories about Weinstein's serial sexual predation appeared, forcing prosecutors to open new investigations in several jurisdictions.
In New York, the investigation resulted in Weinstein's arrest in May 2018. Osgood says he was so concerned about a repeat of 2015 that he asked the NYPD Legal Bureau to petition for the appointment of a special prosecutor instead of Vance's office.
Weinstein was convicted in the New York case in 2020. But an appellate panel overturned the conviction in 2024 leading to a retrial currently underway in Manhattan.
The conviction was overturned because Vance presented testimony from victims uninvolved in the specific charges the mogul was facing.
Through the period, there was pressure for an accounting of what happened in the Gutierrez case. In 2018, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, now running for New York mayor, ordered an investigation, but eight months later, after Weinstein was charged, he 'temporarily postponed' the probe, the letter states.
In 2021, according to Osgood, a second probe under Cuomo was initiated by Attorney General Letitia James, but that too appears to have been prematurely discontinued after Cuomo resigned and Gov. Kathy Hochul took over that September.
Neither James nor Hochul responded to requests for comment.
Osgood was reassigned to Staten Island in November 2018 and soon retired. In 2021, he sued the NYPD claiming he was forced out as retaliation for refusing to follow orders to stonewall a broader probe of SVU. The case was settled in 2023 for $850,000.
In November 2022, Gutierrez testified as a witness against Weinstein during his trial in Los Angeles.
Osgood was in the gallery watching the case he oversaw finally being presented in open court.
'I flew out to LA to support her and let her know there are honest people in the NYPD,' Osgood said.
'Watching my evidence being presented was stunning.'
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