Asia Argento accused of sexual assault: Rose McGowan heartbroken
According to a new report, actress Asia Argento, one of the first prominent women to accuse disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, agreed to pay off her own sexual assault accuser. Fellow #MeToo activist and Weinstein accuser Rose McGowan says her 'heart is broken.'
Asia Argento’s alleged sex abuse victim once was accused of stalking an ex-girlfriend and threatening her with nude photos, according to reports.
Jimmy Bennett’s alleged checkered past was revealed in court filings that show his ex-girlfriend tried to obtain a restraining order against him on July 17, 2015.
The young woman, an actress, indicated that she’d gone to the Los Angeles Police Department to press charges against Bennett for unlawful sex with a minor, stalking and child pornography.
“When I was 17 and Jimmy was 18, he talked me into having sex with him. I had never had sex before,” she said in the 14-page handwritten court document obtained by the Daily Beast. “He continued to talk his way into my life and manipulate me into doing things like smoke. His constant attempts at calling and texting with things like ‘please talk to me, I need help’ etc. caused me to answer in the past. One time he told me that he was being abused by his parents and needed a place to stay. He was 17 at the time.”
The LAPD wouldn’t confirm whether it took her report.
The ex-girlfriend said she feared the “potentially violent” Bennett might confront her mother or her ex-boyfriend, with whom she’d gotten back together.
Bennett, she alleged, also threatened her with naked photos he forced her into taking.
“When I was 17 and he was 18, he manipulated me into sending him naked photos of myself then caused me emotional harm by texting them via Snapchat,” she wrote.
The court filing details Bennett’s alleged obsessive behavior toward her. She wrote that he would often drop by her apartment and call and text her that he was there — even though she told him she didn’t want to see him.
“He has a drug use history and after we broke up when I was 17 and he was 18, he wouldn’t stop harassing me via phone calls and other forms of contact,” her complaint continued. “Both my mother and I felt in danger of our safety. Jimmy has lied, manipulated, and stole (allegedly) from me because my family is in a very poor financial condition, having recently gone through 2 foreclosures and bankruptcy.”
The young woman’s petition for a restraining order was tossed, however, after she failed to appear in court for a hearing.
Reps for her and Bennett, now 22, didn’t return requests for comment by the Daily Beast. Her mother couldn’t be reached and her father declined to comment.
Argento, an Italian actress and director, became one of the most vocal #MeToo advocates after accusing Harvey Weinstein of forcing oral sex on her.
But in a twist last month, Bennett came forward with his own allegations against the “X Factor Italy” judge, claiming she sexually assaulted him in 2013, when he was 17 and she was 37.
Argento admitted her late boyfriend Anthony Bourdain secretly paid off Bennett — but said it was because the celebrity chef “was afraid of the possible negative publicity that such [a] person, whom he considered dangerous, could have brought upon us.”
She’s publicly denied having sex with Bennett — who played her young son in the 2003 movie “The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things” — but told a friend otherwise.
“The horny kid jumped me … It wasn’t raped but I was frozen. He was on top of me. After, he told me I had been his sexual fantasy since was 12,” she texted model Rain Dove.
TMZ reported last week that Bennett finally decided to file a formal police report against Argento.
This article originally appeared on Page Six.
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