Rose McGowan's fraud suit against Harvey Weinstein and 'fixers' survives dismissal motions, but judge tosses racketeering claims

Rose McGowan’s fraud claims against Harvey Weinstein, his lawyers and a spy agency survived a round of dismissal motions in federal court this week — but a judge rejected her racketeering allegations.

The actress sued Weinstein and his team of “fixers” in October 2019, claiming they stole a prepublication copy of her memoir “Brave” in 2017 and tried to “silence” and “portray her as increasingly unglued” to thwart her rape allegation against the movie mogul.

She claimed Weinstein, the private intelligence firm Black Cube and lawyers David Boies and Lisa Bloom engaged in a “diabolical” plot to defraud and discredit her in the months leading up to Weinstein exposes in The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Weinstein, Black Cube, Boies and Bloom filed four separate motions to dismiss her 72-page complaint in the Central District of California.

In his ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright said McGowan convinced the court she has plausible claims of fraudulent deceit and common law fraud against the defendants.

He dismissed her claims alleging racketeering and racketeering conspiracy but said she could try again with an amended complaint filed in the next 21 days.

He also found her claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent hiring and supervision were barred by the statute of limitations.

In rejecting her racketeering claims, Judge Wright said McGowan fell short of convincing the court that Weinstein’s alleged scheme was big enough or open-ended enough to meet legal standards.

He said her racketeering claims, as stated, only show “defendants operated with a singular goal, to protect Weinstein’s reputation by stopping the publication of ‘Brave’ and attempting to discredit McGowan.”

“Ultimately, it matters not whether defendants failed in their goal of protecting Weinstein’s reputation or succeeded in their goal of fraudulently obtaining a copy of ‘Brave,’ as in either case the court finds no risk that the manner in which the predicate acts occurred could recur indefinitely,” he wrote.

“Neither of defendants’ purported goals — keeping Weinstein’s misconduct secret from the public or obtaining a copy of ‘Brave’ before it was published — could be pursued anew. For these reasons, the court finds that McGowan also fails to allege a racketeering pattern with open-ended continuity,” he wrote.

“Harvey Weinstein was able to perpetrate and cover up decades of violence and control over women because he had a sophisticated team working on his behalf to systematically silence and discredit his victims,” McGowan said when she filed the lawsuit.

Weinstein’s civil lawyer Phyllis Kupferstein previously dismissed the suit as having “no legal merit.”

“Once and for all, Rose McGowan will be shown to be what she is; a publicity seeker looking for money,” Kupferstein said in a response to the lawsuit last year.

Weinstein, 68, is now serving a 23-year sentence at Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, New York, after he was convicted of rape and sexual assault involving separate victims.

A Manhattan jury found him guilty of raping actress Jessica Mann in a Midtown Manhattan hotel in March 2013 and sexually assaulting former production assistant Mimi Haley in 2006.

Los Angeles County prosecutors now are working to extradite him to California to face charges that he raped or sexually assaulted five other victims.

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