Harvey Weinstein is suing his former attorney Jose Baez.
The disgraced movie producer filed a lawsuit against Baez, who dropped his New York criminal case in 2019, and his partner Michelle Medina on Wednesday, demanding a refund of $1 million (£720,000) plus interest.
"Baez refused to provide any substantive or meaningful legal services to Weinstein in contravention of (their) Engagement", the lawsuit claims.
According to the legal papers, Baez had allegedly agreed to be paid on a "work on a fee-for-service with co-counsel Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. through the end of all trial and post-trial basis proceedings" once he joined Weinstein's legal team in January 2019. He was to receive $2 million (£1.4 million) in monthly payments of $200,000 (£144,000) as part of his contract.
Weinstein claims that during Baez's time on his team, he was "regularly unavailable to communicate to Weinstein, and not directly involved with the compilation, investigation, research, and drafting of various high priority substantive legal work which was substantially delegated to other non-Baez Law Firm attorneys such as Ronald S. Sullivan Jr".
In May 2019, Weinstein asked Baez to produce a document accounting for the time and work he'd spent on the case, but claims the lawyer refused. Baez then allegedly started to threaten his withdrawal from the case, according to the lawsuit, and demanded to be paid the outstanding $1 million.
However, by summer 2019, Baez had officially withdrawn from Weinstein's team.
Responding to the lawsuit, Joe Tacopina, an attorney for Baez and Medina, told Variety: "Harvey Weinstein's lawsuit against Jose Baez and his firm is nothing more than yet another predatory act by a vile fiend, utterly lacking in credibility...
"In yet another legal blunder, Weinstein's lawsuit has opened the door to disclosure of damning statements by him which would otherwise have been shielded by the attorney-client privilege. Despite Weinstein's penchant for bullying, Jose Baez is an upstanding pillar of the legal community who will not be pushed around and looks forward to exposing Weinstein's claims for what they are, audacious lies."
Responding to the statement, a spokesman for Weinstein said, "Mr. Tacopina's irrelevant tirade aside, Harvey Weinstein is lawfully enabled to receive fair and accountable legal representation. Mr. Weinstein and his attorneys view this as a simple fee disagreement that they expect will be settled amicably."
Weinstein was found guilty of third-degree rape and a first-degree criminal sexual act, and was sentenced to 23 years in prison in February 2020.
