Asia Argento will not be paying her accuser any more money
Asia Argento’s lawyer, Mark Jay Heller, has released a lengthy statement regarding the recent New York Times investigation into allegations that the actor agreed to pay $380,000 to Jimmy Bennett, a former co-star who claims Argento sexually assaulted him in 2013 when he was 17 years old. In the statement, titled “Asia Argento Launches Phase Two of the #MeToo Movement,” Heller addresses a number of topics, including the payment, Argento’s continued assertion of innocence, and how she defines #MeToo’s second phase.
Heller reiterates that Argento’s relationship with Bennett “was never sexual, but rather the relationship was a long distance friendship over many years.” Responding to recently released texts and photos from TMZ that find Argento admitting to having sex with Bennett, Heller says that the event constituted assault on the part of Bennett.
“As revealed in texts messages published by TMZ, Asia stated ‘The horny kid jumped me…I had sex with him it felt weird,’” the statement reads. “She went on to relate that she became ‘frozen’ when he was on top of her and he told her that she had been his sexual fantasy since he was 12 years old. Asia chose at the time not to prosecute Bennett for sexually attacking her.” Later, the statement adds that “Asia never initiated an inappropriate sexual contact with a minor, but rather she was attacked by Bennett and might even be suffering the fallback of a smear campaign by those already accused who may have a vested interest in their accusers being denied credibility.”
The piece goes on to note that Bennett was charged with “unlawful sex with a minor,” “stalking,” and “child pornography,” and “child exploitation” in 2014. It also says Argento “does not intend to prosecute Bennett for his conduct and recognizes that his unfortunate past, his stalled acting career, and a lawsuit against his own parents for allegedly misappropriating more than a million and a half dollars from his account might explain his desperation to seek money from Asia and Bourdain for this falsely alleged incident that took place more than five years ago.”