Michael Ovitz, the co-founder of CAA, stormed out of a deposition on June 1 after being asked about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Ovitz was being questioned by a lawyer for Julia Ormond, the actress who has sued CAA for allegedly setting her up to be sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein in December 1995.
Ormond’s attorneys have been seeking to take Ovitz’s deposition for more than a year, and ultimately got a court order directing him to comply with their subpoena. According to a deposition transcript filed in the case, Ovitz showed up to testify at his attorney’s office in New York. He spoke about his relationship with Weinstein, repeatedly calling him a “bully,” but became irate when asked about Epstein.
“I’m not going to discuss anything about Jeffrey Epstein,” he said. “You can ask all the questions you want — you’re going to get no answers.”
A few moments later, he announced, “I’m done with this,” removed his microphone, walked out of the room, slammed the door, and left the building.
Ormond’s attorneys are now seeking to have Ovitz held in contempt and that an arrest warrant be issued to ensure that he completes the deposition.
“Ovitz has no plausible defense for his contemptuous conduct,” wrote Ormond’s attorney, Meredith Firetog, in a motion for sanctions.
Ormond sued CAA, Weinstein, Miramax and Disney under the Adult Survivors Act in New York in 2023. She alleges that CAA knew of Weinstein’s sexual misconduct and failed to warn her before sending her out to a dinner meeting with him.
She also alleges that Weinstein took her to an apartment owned by Miramax and sexually assaulted her. Disney and Miramax reached an out-of-court settlement, but CAA has continued to fight, denying that its agents did anything wrong.
Ovitz had left the agency a few months before the alleged assault, but Ormond’s attorneys wanted to question him about his knowledge of Weinstein, the operations of CAA, and the culture of harassment in the industry, which Ovitz had referenced in his memoir.
In the deposition, he said he did not get along with Weinstein.
“I didn’t like his methodology of business,” he said. “He was a bully and — and he and I got into it multiple times. I talked to him as little as possible.”
But he said that he was unaware of sexual misconduct allegations against Weinstein until they became public in 2017.
He was later asked what he would have done if he found out that Weinstein had sexually assaulted someone, and answered that “We surely wouldn’t have done business with the person.”
Ormond’s attorney, Kevin Mintzer, then asked if he was friendly with Epstein.
After initially saying “no,” Ovitz asked, “What’s your definition of ‘friendly’?” He acknowledged that he had once gone to Epstein’s house “for 20 minutes at the recommendation of the JP Morgan Bank.”
Ovitz was then asked if he had ever visited with him at St. Barts.
“What does this got to do with Harvey Weinstein?” Ovitz asked.
Mintzer attempted to follow up by asking if Ovitz was aware that Epstein had been convicted of sex crimes, at which point Ovitz walked out, about 45 minutes into a three-hour deposition.
Emails between Epstein and Ovitz were included in the massive trove of Epstein material released by the Justice Department earlier this year. In one email from 2012, Ovitz wrote, “I would love to see you.” In another, Ovitz told Epstein that he was looking forward to seeing him at St. Barts. And in a third, he told Epstein that he was with another party and “we both are raving about you.”
After Ovitz walked out, CAA’s attorney objected that they had not been notified that there would be questions about Epstein.
Ormond’s attorney argued that Ovitz had shown contempt for the proceedings throughout, and had initially said “no” when asked if his testimony would be truthful, before saying “yes.”
