Harvey Weinstein's 'army' of investigators included journalist Dylan Howard, says report

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Harvey Weinstein faces new assault allegations in the UK

Bryan Llenas reports as British police say they are investigating the new allegations against the Hollywood producer.

A reporter who was sacked by Channel Seven has been named as one of Harvey Weinstein’s army of insiders.

Dylan Howard was a sports reporter for the Australian TV network but was dumped in 2008 over the AFL medical records scandal.

He’s now the chief content officer of American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer, Radar Online and US Weekly.

In a recent piece by The New Yorker, it’s claimed that Howard was one of a number of journalists and spies who tried to help Harvey Weinstein disprove Rose McGowan’s allegations of sexual misconduct against the movie mogul by feeding him information uncovered by one of his reporters.

Howard reportedly emailed Weinstein about an off the record interview one of his reporters conducted with a woman called Elizabeth Avellan, whose husband left her to start dating McGowan.

In the email, Howard wrote: “I have something AMAZING ... eventually she laid into Rose pretty hard.”

According to The New Yorker, Weinstein replied, “This is the killer. Especially if my fingerprints r not on this.”

In a statement, Howard told The New Yorker: “I had an obligation to protect AMI’s interests by seeking out — but not publishing — truthful information about people who Mr. Weinstein insisted were making false claims against him. To the extent I provided ‘off the record’ information to Mr. Weinstein about one of his accusers — at a time when Mr. Weinstein was denying any harassment of any woman — it was information which I would never have allowed AMI to publish on the internet or in its magazines.”

Harvey Weinstein hired journalists and highly trained ex-spies and military personnel who used fake identities to try to stop accusers from going public with sexual misconduct claims against him.

Harvey Weinstein hired journalists and highly trained ex-spies and military personnel who used fake identities to try to stop accusers from going public with sexual misconduct claims against him.

Howard also claimed that he never let his relationship with Weinstein affect his editorial decisions.

“I always separated those two roles carefully and completely — and resisted Mr. Weinstein’s repeated efforts to have AMI titles publish favorable stories about him or negative articles about his accusers,” Howard said in the statement.

Since the bombshell allegations against Weinstein were first published five weeks ago in The New York Times, more than 100 women have come forward and claimed they were sexually abused by the disgraced mogul.

This article originally appeared on news.com.au.