Actress Asia Argento is now claiming that Jimmy Bennett sexually assaulted her when he was 17, and alleges that he’d fantasized about her for years.
The 2013 alleged sexual encounter between actress Asia Argento, 42, and actor Jimmy Bennett, 22, when he was just 17 has taken a shocking new turn. While reports state that she admitted the two had sex while he was a minor, Asia is now claiming to be the victim of a sexual assault. Texts that TMZ reports were written by Argento state that Jimmy “jumped her” and that she was “frozen” during their encounter in a Marina del Rey, CA hotel room. The prominent Harvey Weinstein rape accuser and #MeToo leader’s lawyer Mark Heller says in a Sept. 4 statement that “Jimmy told her that she had been his sexual fantasy since he was 12-years-old,” referring to alleged nude pics he sent Asia when he was that age.
Heller refers to texts from Asia obtained by TMZ where she wrote that, “The horny kid jumped me…I had sex with him it felt weird.I didn’t know he was a minor until the shakedown letter.” In others she claimed to have “frozen” while Jimmy was on top of her. Heller says in his statement that, “Asia chose at the time not to prosecute Bennett for sexually attacking her.”
After the New York Times published the story of their alleged encounter, Asia responded to the publication, “I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett.” Heller now claims that “Asia at no time initiated a sexual encounter with Bennett” and that her response to the Times was because the nature of their relationship “was never sexual, but rather the relationship was a long distance friendship over many years.”
Heller goes on to claim in the lengthly statement issues to the media that Jimmy only went after Asia for a payout once he found out she was dating late media personality Anthony Bourdain. She alleges that Jimmy believed Anthony was wealthy and could hurt both of their reputations if his story got out, especially since they were both vocal #MeToo supporters. “Bourdain chose to protect Asia and his reputation and pay Bennett and allowed Bennett to extract payments from him,” Heller explains. He continues, “Asia was completely against this approach because she had done nothing wrong and especially since the incident was initiated and perpetuated by Bennett against her.” Bourdain committed suicide on June 8 so the claims that he carried out the payments against Asia’s wishes cannot be directly verified by him.
Helller then goes on to point out in his press release that it is “ironic” that “Bennett himself was alleged to have been charged in 2014 at the Los Angeles Police Department with ‘unlawful sex with a minor, stalking, child pornography and child exploitation’ and that it was alleged by the complainant in the matter that Bennett manipulated her ‘into sending him naked photos’ and it was alleged by the complainant that Bennet had a history of drug use.” Ouch!
He ended his statement by saying that “Asia 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 5 years ago.”
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