Rose McGowan sues alleging intimidation

 Actress Rose McGowan filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday alleging that Harvey Weinstein and two of his former attorneys engaged in racketeering to silence her and derail her career before she accused him of rape.

The suit filed in Los Angeles names as defendants Weinstein, attorneys David Boies and Lisa Bloom and their law firms, and Black Cube, an Israeli intelligence firm hired by Weinstein. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants conspired to defraud, smear and marginalize McGowan as she was preparing to name Weinstein during the run-up to the explosion of the #MeToo movement late in 2017.

The suit comes on the heels of a pair of recent books that detail Weinstein and his team's efforts to keep his accusers quiet. "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 in a statement.

"My life was upended by their actions, and I refuse to be intimidated any longer." Weinstein's attorney Phyllis Kupferstein said McGowan is "a publicity seeker looking for money" and her suit is meritless.

"From the moment she sought a $6 million dollar payout in return for not making these baseless allegations, which we rejected at the time, we knew that she was waiting for an opportune time such as this to begin her suit," Kupferstein said.

Emails seeking comment from the other defendants were not immediately returned.McGowan, 46, known for her role in the "Scream" movie franchise, was one of the earliest and one of the most prominent of dozens of women to accuse Weinstein of sexual misconduct, making her a major figure in the #MeToo movement.

---AP