Reports: Harvey Weinstein close to $25M settlement with some accusers but won't have to pay

Less than a month before his New York trial on sex-crime charges, Harvey Weinstein is reported to be close to a $25 million settlement deal over civil suits with some of his accusers – under terms in which he won't have to pay nor admit to wrongdoing.

According to reporting by the New York Times and Variety on Wednesday, teams of civil lawyers for Weinstein, as well as lawyers from the New York Attorney General's office, and for more than 30 accusers have reached a tentative agreement that would resolve most of the civil litigation against the fallen movie mogul, including a broad class-action case accusing him and his board of directors of The Weinstein Company of a systemic pattern of sexual misconduct.

A representative of Weinstein's legal team, Juda Engelmayer, had no comment on the reports about the proposed settlement.

The publications quoted anonymous lawyers involved in on-going negotiations over two years who said the proposed settlement's terms would not require Weinstein to admit wrongdoing or pay anything to his accusers himself.

Instead, it would be paid by insurance companies representing The Weinstein Company, which is in bankruptcy proceedings and has other creditors. The $25 million payout to the accusers would be part of an overall $47 million settlement intended to close out the company’s obligations.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

But the proposed settlement is not a done deal: It still has to be approved by at least two judges, one from the federal court in Delaware overseeing the bankruptcy case, and the other from a federal court in New York.

Moreover, at least two accusers, and possibly more, plan to challenge the proposed settlement as not good enough to compensate them and not strong enough to punish Weinstein.

Douglas Wigdor, who represents two objectors, told the Times and Variety that his clients most resent a clause that says for every accuser who does not accept the deal, the insurers will give $500,000 to Weinstein as a way to avoid any further obligations to defend him. 

“What’s most offensive is that they’re trying to force our client to settle,” Wigdor said.

The payout formula is complicated; among a mix of payments to various parties, a chunk of the settlement money, about $12 million, would go to the attorneys who defended Weinstein, his brother Bob Weinstein, and the Weinstein Co. directors in the civil cases.

The Times interviewed some of the accusers who said they weren't entirely pleased about the proposal but thought it might be the best they and their fellow plaintiffs could get.

“While this settlement is flawed, we know it represents the hard work of several survivors of Harvey Weinstein," said Rebecca Goldman, chief operating officer of TIME’S UP Foundation, in a statement emailed to USA TODAY. "We hope it brings them, and perhaps others, some small measure of justice and relief that is long overdue."

“We support survivors, and that includes supporting survivors to make their own decisions to make deals with their abusers," added Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of the anti-rape group UltraViolet, in a statement emailed to USA TODAY. "But it’s hardly lost on us that these brave women made the only choice that was available to them under our flawed and disempowering judicial system. Survivors of sexual abuse deserve better.” 

This is not the potential end to all civil lawsuits against Weinstein: It doesn't include one famous accuser of Weinstein, Ashley Judd, who's filed a separate sexual harassment and retaliation suit against him in California. She has said she wants a trial in her case.

Generally speaking, civil litigation against a criminal defendant can be placed on hold while his criminal case is pending so as to avoid infringing on his Fifth Amendment rights during depositions and other civil proceedings. 

A number of Bill Cosby's accusers also sued him in civil court. Those cases were either dismissed or were settled by his insurance company (over his objections) after he was convicted of sex crimes in 2018. 

Late Wednesday, Elizabeth Fegan, the lead attorney who represents the plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit, issued a statement emphasizing that the proposed settlement is not yet final. 

"It would be inappropriate for me, or for anyone involved in the litigation, to talk about specifics" now, she said in the statement emailed to USA TODAY. “What I can say is that the women who brought this suit forward and persevered against long odds are the heroes of this case, especially considering that the defendant went to every extreme to discredit them."

She added that prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney's office who are prosecuting Weinstein "can benefit from what we’ve uncovered in our 24 months of litigation."

Weinstein will be tried starting Jan. 6 on five sex-crime charges, including rape and sexual assault and involving two accusers. He was in court Wednesday in Manhattan for a bail hearing – his bail was hiked to $5 million from $1 million – and he is scheduled to undergo back surgery on Thursday after he was injured in a car accident this summer.

The proposed settlement would cover only about a third of the total number of women, named and anonymous, who have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct ranging from groping and sexual harassment to sexual assault and rape in episodes dating back decades. They came to light in the fall of 2017 when the New York Times and the New Yorker published exposés in which women, some of them famous actresses, came forward for the first time to accuse him on the record.