Elkan Abramowitz

Elkan Abramowitz appears in the investigation as a criminal lawyer working for Harvey Weinstein, most visibly during the 2015 police complaint by Ambra Battilana Gutierrez. He was the public face of Weinstein’s legal team, but his role extended beyond courtroom-facing representation: the book connects him to efforts to shape how journalists and prosecutors assessed Gutierrez’s credibility. His former partnership with District Attorney Cy Vance is also noted as part of his professional background.

Legal Role in the Gutierrez Case

After prosecutors declined to bring charges against Weinstein, the account describes a broader effort to make Gutierrez’s allegation disappear. Abramowitz served as the public representative of the defense while Linda Fairstein, a former Manhattan sex-crimes prosecutor, privately helped connect Weinstein’s team with the lead prosecutor. The division between public and private work places Abramowitz at the visible center of the legal response, alongside other participants working behind the scenes.

The defense also focused attention on records from two Italian court cases involving Gutierrez. Those records concerned earlier legal proceedings and testimony; the book stresses that they did not establish that she had lied about Weinstein, or even that she had lied about the earlier allegation. Prosecutors later acknowledged concern about how her credibility might appear at trial in light of the history the defense had highlighted.

Records, Reporters, and Credibility

Abramowitz and David Boies shared the Italian court documents with Ken Auletta, a writer for The New Yorker who had been considering an article about the case. Auletta later explained that the lawyers persuaded him Gutierrez was not trustworthy. The episode shows how material that did not prove the central allegation could nevertheless shape a journalist’s assessment of whether to pursue it. Abramowitz’s role therefore reached beyond advising Weinstein: he helped put a damaging account of a complainant before a potential reporter.

The Meeting at The New York Times

During the later confrontation with The New York Times, Abramowitz accompanied Weinstein, Lisa Bloom, and Fairstein to the newspaper’s offices. Megan Twohey took the meeting, which was held in a small glass-walled room along a busy corridor and limited to fifteen minutes. The setting left Weinstein and his representatives visible to newsroom colleagues, even as they attempted to present material against the investigation’s sources.

Abramowitz and Fairstein characterized Gutierrez as an opportunist and emphasized her past. Bloom supplied photographs of Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan smiling with Weinstein, while Weinstein attacked both women’s mental stability. The reporters had already investigated Gutierrez’s background and reviewed Judd’s history, so the meeting did not overturn their reporting. Instead, it revealed the tactics the defense and its allies were prepared to use to weaken the women’s credibility.

Narrative Role

Abramowitz’s appearances link the private legal response to the public contest over what could be believed and reported. In the Gutierrez case, his team’s circulation of old court records helped steer a potential media account away from the allegation; later, he stood with Weinstein’s representatives as they tried to challenge the sources behind The New York Times investigation. The narrative does not present the Italian records as proof of falsity. It makes their use—and their potential influence on journalists—part of the story of how a complainant’s credibility could become a target in its own right.