Manhattan District Attorney’s Office

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office was the public authority that decided not to bring a criminal charge against Harvey Weinstein after Ambra Battilana Gutierrez complained about him. Its decision closed the immediate prosecutorial path, while leaving unanswered questions about how the case had been handled and how Weinstein’s efforts to undermine Gutierrez’s credibility affected the environment around it.

Review of the Complaint

The office announced through a spokesperson that, after reviewing the available evidence and conducting multiple interviews with both parties, it did not consider a criminal charge supported. The statement gave a brief explanation of the decision but did not publicly detail how the evidence had been weighed. Gutierrez left New York without giving interviews or otherwise discussing her complaint publicly, and people around the company were left wondering what had happened behind the scenes.

Contacts Around the Case

The account describes private links between Weinstein’s legal team and people connected to the prosecution. Linda Fairstein, a former Manhattan sex-crimes prosecutor, was in touch with Weinstein’s office and helped connect his legal team with the lead prosecutor. When Megan Twohey later asked Fairstein about Gutierrez’s allegation, Fairstein insisted it was unfounded but did not disclose her ties to the case. Fairstein later said Twohey had not asked and that her actions were not unusual. These details do not establish that the office’s decision was improperly influenced, but they form part of the circumstances in which the decision was scrutinized.

Credibility and Aftermath

Weinstein’s private investigators gathered records from two Italian court cases involving Gutierrez. Those records did not prove that she had lied about Weinstein, or even that she had lied about an earlier allegation. New York prosecutors would later acknowledge, however, that they worried about how credible she might appear at trial, given the history Weinstein had highlighted. The account thus distinguishes the records themselves from the concerns they generated in assessing a prosecution.

After the office declined to press charges, Weinstein paid Gutierrez a seven-figure settlement in exchange for her silence and obtained the audio recording she had made at police direction. The office’s decision and the settlement were separate outcomes: the former ended the prospect of a criminal charge, while the latter restricted Gutierrez’s ability to speak publicly about the complaint.