Harvey Weinstein Now Accused Of Sex Trafficking, Netting Him the Coveted ‘Sex Criminal Triple Crown’

I honestly didn’t think there were any kinds of sexual misconduct left to accuse Harvey Weinstein of. But it turns out someone figured one out, and Harvey Weinstein is being sued for sex trafficking by British actress Kadian Nobel.

Buzzfeed had two lawyers weigh in on the lawsuit, which is essentially a legal maneuver around the statute of limitations for a sexual assault lawsuit and not actually accusing Weinstein of trafficking women.

“The federal trafficking sex trafficking lawsuit is a very promising and novel legal theory because, at the end of the day, it may be a way to get around a statute of limitations that currently might bar a lot of lawsuits against Weinstein,” criminal defense attorney Manny Medrano told BuzzFeed News. “It’s a way to bring back from the dead lawsuits that were simply barred by the statute of limitations. It’s good lawyering, good legal thinking out of the box.”

But Arthur Aidala, a New York City trial attorney, said that while he thinks the tactic is “quite unique and atypical,” it “really pushes the essence of this law to its limits.”

“They are trying to do some legal maneuvering and some slick lawyering, bringing in his brother and his company — that is what we call going after the deeper pockets,” he told BuzzFeed News.

So what is Nobel’s grounds for a sex trafficking lawsuit? It’s basically just that the alleged incident happened in France at the Cannes Film Festival. I don’t see how trafficking applies. Weinstein didn’t bring her to France, he just ran into her there and invited her up to his room, where he allegedly sexually assaulted her. This is by no means an okay thing to do, but it doesn’t really sound like sex trafficking to me, either.

I know we all want to get Harvey Weinstein, but it is actually more important that we uphold the rule of law, even for a rape golem like Weinstein. I find it in fairly poor taste to an use a law meant to prevent women from being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery because your legal window to file a lawsuit for what actually happened to you has closed.

Now, I’m not on Weinstein’s side here. Saying he’s not a good person is an understatement. His reaction to being accused of hundreds of rapes is to go to day camp and goof off and he hired a private army of spies to keep tabs on the women accusing him of rape. And I know people want to see him punished in some way, and that he probably won’t be. But this lawsuit seems to be grasping at straws, and seems destined to fail.