Tom Ajamie

Tom Ajamie is an attorney whose investigation of a disputed amfAR transaction brought him into contact with Harvey Weinstein’s efforts to control information about his business and conduct. Hired by the charity’s board to examine the matter, Ajamie encountered obstruction, heard allegations of harassment and abuse, and ultimately rejected an offer that would have required him to keep what he had learned secret.

The amfAR inquiry

The inquiry concerned $600,000 raised at a 2015 amfAR auction in Cannes. As Finding Neverland, Weinstein’s Broadway production, struggled to get started, Weinstein had arranged for the money to go to the show’s investors without disclosing that destination to the charity. Some amfAR leaders felt duped and feared the transaction might have been illegal. The board hired Ajamie to investigate what had happened.

The review quickly became difficult. Ajamie told Megan Twohey that Weinstein blocked his efforts at every turn, while David Boies used nondisclosure agreements to muzzle members of the board. The obstacles were therefore not limited to tracing the money: they also restricted what people involved in the charity could say about the inquiry. As Ajamie asked questions about Weinstein, he heard more allegations of sexual harassment and abuse, expanding the significance of an investigation that had begun with a financial transaction.

Lisa Bloom and the changing picture

Ajamie raised the allegations with Lisa Bloom over a drink in Los Angeles in October 2016. He had met her once before, admired her feminist credentials, and hoped to establish a professional relationship. Because Bloom had taken on powerful men such as Donald Trump, Ajamie reasoned that she might be willing to challenge Weinstein too, perhaps already on behalf of women who had accused him.

Bloom told Ajamie that she had never heard complaints about Weinstein’s treatment of women and asked him to keep her informed. Several months later, during the January 2017 Sundance Film Festival, Ajamie was staying with Bloom and friends at a rented condo in Park City. After attending a party hosted by Weinstein and Jay-Z, Bloom returned with word that Weinstein wanted to meet Ajamie. Ajamie reluctantly agreed to go with her to Weinstein’s suite at the Main and SKY hotel for breakfast.

The offer and refusal

At the meeting, Weinstein first lashed out at Ajamie for investigating his past, then shifted to pleading for an arrangement. The proposed condition was an NDA drafted by Boies, which would require Ajamie to keep secret what he had learned about Weinstein. Weinstein also presented the prospect of friendship and doing business together. The abrupt turn from anger to negotiation made the purpose of the proposed agreement plain: Ajamie’s silence was part of the bargain.

Ajamie refused to trade his silence for a deal and left convinced that the $600,000 transaction was the least of what Weinstein had to hide. As he and Bloom were leaving, she advised him to reconsider his position toward Weinstein. That counsel sharpened the contrast between Ajamie’s role as an investigator and Bloom’s position in the encounter: she had largely stayed quiet while presenting herself as neutral, then urged him toward a different stance after the meeting.

Narrative significance

Ajamie’s account links the charity’s financial concerns to a broader system of secrecy. The undisclosed transfer prompted the inquiry, but the board’s NDAs, the obstruction Ajamie described, and Weinstein’s proposed agreement all showed how access to information could be constrained. Ajamie did not establish in this episode that the transaction was illegal; instead, his refusal to sign and his conclusion about the larger stakes reveal why the investigation mattered beyond its original financial question. His encounter also gave Megan Twohey a concrete account of Bloom’s work for Weinstein, complicating the image Ajamie had formed from Bloom’s public feminist credentials.