Young actor/musician says Argento sexually assaulting him in a California hotel room when he was 17
Asia Argento, one of producer Harvey Weinstein’s first accusers, paid off a young actor/musician who says she sexually assaulted him when he was just 17, The New York Times reports.
The man in question, Jimmy Bennett, says Argento paid him $380,000 to keep silent after sexually assaulting him in a California hotel room. According to The Times, they received documents via encrypted email from an unnamed source that include a selfie dated May 9,2013 of Bennett and Argento in bed together.
According to a notice of intent to sue from his lawyer, Gordon K. Sattro, Bennett is seeking $3.5 million in damages for the infliction of emotional distress, lost wages, assault and battery. It specifies that in the five years prior to meeting Argento, Bennett earned $2.7 million, but has only averaged $60,000 per year since. Sattro says Bennett attributes the drop in income to the trauma of his sexual encounter with Argento.
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Details of the settlement and a payment schedule was arranged between Sattro and Argento’s lawyer, Carrie Goldberg, in April. In documents obtained by The Times, Goldberg said the money was “helping Mr. Bennett.”
Bennett, who has worked as an actor in Hollywood since he was six years old, appeared in “Amityville Horror,” “Firewall,” “Poseidon” and “Hostage.” He also played Argento’s 8-year-old son in the 2004 film “The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things.”
Since coming forward in November with the allegations about Weinstein, Argento has become a leading figurehead in the #MeToo movement and was joined in the fight by Bourdain, who died in June of an apparent suicide.
Argento’s team didn’t immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment, nor did Sattro.
