Sen. Cory Booker will be donating $7,800 in campaign donations from the film producer Harvey Weinstein to a charity that works with victims of sexual assault, his office said Friday.
Booker will be donating Weinstein’s money to the New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault, a nonprofit based in Lawrenceville that runs 21 rape crisis centers in the state and advocates for sexual-assault victims, Booker spokesman Tom Pietrykoski said.
Weinstein donated $10,000 to Booker’s joint fundraising committee in October 2013, according to FEC records. From that donation, $7,800 went to Booker’s campaign and $2,200 went to the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, according to Booker’s office.
A high-profile fundraiser for the Democratic Party with connections in Hollywood and Silicon Valley, Booker is renouncing Weinstein’s money a day after a bombshell report in the New York Times in which a series of women accused the film producer of sexual harassment over several decades. Among the accusers, some of whom entered settlements with Weinstein, are the actresses Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan and a female assistant who said “Mr. Weinstein badgered her into giving him a massage while he was naked,” according to the Times.
In a statement responding to the Times report, Weinstein apologized and said he was consulting experts to help him reform his conduct. But his attorney also said he would be suing the Times.
Weinstein has produced iconic films such as Pulp Fiction and The Lord of the Rings, and he is a major donor to Democratic candidates and causes. Five other Democratic senators said after the Times report that they, too, would be donating his campaign contributions to various charities, according to BuzzFeed.
