Former Cablevision chief and current MSG head and New York Knicks and Rangers owner James Dolan has been sued by a woman claiming he set her up to be raped by now imprisoned producer Harvey Weinstein a decade ago. 

Kellye Croft claims in her complaint, filed in a Los Angeles federal court and reported on by Associated Press that she became romantically linked with Dolan in 2013, when she was 27.

She said Dolan set her up with a job as a masseuse for Eagles headliner Glenn Frey while Dolan's band, JD & the Straight Shot, was out on tour opening for The Eagles on tour. 

Croft said Dolan, then 58, used his power and influence during that time to position seemingly random encounters between her and Weinstein, which she claims led to the convicted rapist sexually assaulting her in a Los Angeles hotel back in early 2014.

Dolan was briefly on the board at Weinstein's production company between 2015 and 2016.

Croft also said that when she informed Dolan of Weinstein's aggressive advances, he blithely remarked, "we all know" that Weinstein "has problems." 

“I have suffered so profoundly because of what James Dolan and Harvey Weinstein did to me years ago, and it was not an easy decision to come forward and seek justice,” Croft said in a statement. “But for me, to truly address my trauma, I need to seek accountability.”

Dolan's attorney, E. Danya Perry, said there is “absolutely no merit” to Croft’s allegations and references to Weinstein are “simply meant to inflame.”

“Kellye Croft and James Dolan had a friendship,” Perry said in a statement. “Bottom line, this is not a he said/she said matter and there is compelling evidence to back up our position. We look forward to proving that in court.”

New York attorney general Letitia James said that she has helped get money for women "who experienced sexual misconduct and workplace harassment by convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein" as part of a class action suit against the former studio mogul and now convicted rapist. 

The payment must still be approved by the the courts--district and bankruptcy--and would resolve the state's 2018 suit against The Weinstein Company LLC, Harvey Weinstein, and (brother) Robert Weinstein over both a hostile work environment and women who brought a class action suit saying they had been either sexually harassed or assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. 

The payment is also part of a larger global agreement in the bankruptcy plan for the company and its parent, Weinstein Company Holdings LLC. 

"The agreement ensures that women who experienced a hostile work environment, sexual harassment, and gender-based discrimination while working at The Weinstein Company, as well as sexual abuse by Harvey Weinstein, are entitled to obtain restitution, by creating a $18,875,000 victims’ compensation fund," said the attorney general's office. "This agreement is a win for every woman who has experienced sexual harassment, discrimination, intimidation, or retaliation by her employer," said James.

Court TV in November will air two primetime specials surrounding the upcoming Harvey Weinstein criminal trial, the network said Thursday.

The special pre-trial coverage will air as part of the network’s Closing Arguments with Vinnie Politan series on Nov. 4-5, and will feature Court TV anchor Seema Iyer’s exclusive interviews with Weinstein’s accusers and defense team during the primetime event, said the network. 

Despite a late inning offer that never officially made it to court, the sale of The Weinstein Co. to investment group Lantern Capital for $310 million was approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Court on May 8.

The Weinstein Co., rocked by a horrific sexual harassment scandal involving its co-founder and former CEO Harvey Weinstein, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March.  At the time, Lantern Capital, a unit of Texas-based investment firm Lantern Asset Management had made a stalking horse bid for the company. While another bidder – Inclusion Media, headed by Broadway producer Howard Kagan – planned to make a $315 million offer, including $30 million set aside for a victims fund for women sexually assaulted and harassed by Harvey Weinstein, that bid was never formally made to the court, according to reports. The Lantern Capital bid, which involved $310 million in cash and the assumption of about $125 million in debt, was approved by The Weinstein Co. board in early May as superior to the Inclusion Media. 

Just what the new owners will do with the studio, producers of cable reality hits like Project Runway, remains to be seen. Lantern Capital is run by Andy Mitchell and Milos Brajovic, who have pledged to bring the studio back to its heyday, when it was one of the top independent film producers in the country. Lantern’s portfolio is decidedly absent entertainment investments – its biggest holdings are American Zinc Recycling, Roundtree Asset Management (a vehicle for rolling up underperforming car dealerships across the country), bulk shipping platform Good Bulk and North Carolina luxury resort Bright’s Creek.

We stood near 66th Street at Central Park West in Manhattan, thousands of us, behind the police barricades, waiting. The first-anniversary NYC Women’s March crowd would reportedly hit 200,000, but many of us — too far away from the speeches, outcries, slogans and finally, the start of the marching — stood and waited for over two hours, patient and hopeful.

Then, finally, at the first real signs of restlessness on this unseasonably warm day: movement. It was slow at the beginning, like baby steps. The shouting got loudest as we passed cameras, then monitors, then Trump-branded hotels. The placard signs were winning: “Men of Quality Don’t Fear Equality,” “Girls With Dreams Become Women With Vision,” “Get Your Tiny Hands Off Mother Earth,” “The Fem-Pire Strikes Back,” and a personal favorite, “UGH Where Do I Even Start.” And then, after a turn at 59th Street and Columbus Circle, the crowd widened and we were off, moving quickly, walking 20 more blocks with a sense of exhausted relief and accomplishment, and a hope that it would contribute to positive change.

The pace of that day, in fact, seemed to mirror that of this current moment in the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements. Last October wasn’t a week old when Harvey Weinstein turned from producer to pariah, and ever since, weekly revelations have drawn ire and more banishments in film and television — perhaps most notably on TV, once-invincible morning host Matt Lauer of Today. But real progress has proven slow, as patience battles restlessness.

Read More:Some On-the-Job Gender Training | With #MeToo, TV Hits the ‘Reset Button’

That pace is fine for history; social movements move slowly and broadly in a host of directions and take years, even decades, to unfold. What’s unique here and now is that this current women’s movement is playing out on the most relentlessly and constantly examined canvas in modern history; namely, the digital, multiplatform, obsessive 24-hour news cycle. And, as we’ve already witnessed, there’s no way to keep that impatient, ratings-hungry backdrop from reshaping what will be an historic, evolving narrative — especially given that the media itself is among the industries being examined.

The excessive punditry makes it difficult to parse what it all means going forward after a week that saw one woman’s intimately reported, aggressive dating encounter with Master of None star/co-creator Aziz Ansari balanced against Today, one of TV’s most popular shows, naming its first-ever female executive producer, Libby Leist. One thing’s for certain: It will be a challenge to make the right kind of continued progress while separating conversation from noise.

“The complexity of the topic itself is in part due to the fact that there’s never any pause in the cycle of reaction,” Isra Ali, clinical assistant professor in the department of media culture and communications at New York University, said. “There tends to be a trajectory of something reported, like with Aziz Ansari, and then immediate reaction online and then reactions of news reporting reacting not on just the event but also in reaction to the reaction. The question becomes, does it ever settle or is it just a continual cycle?”

A Maddening Pace
Also muddying the meaning in the movement are the competing narratives. One can argue that this current push for rights was born during the last presidential campaign and saw its first symbolic heights in the first Women’s March, with attendance that — White House reports aside — dwarfed the inauguration crowds. In the months since, the general goals have been about protecting reproductive rights and health care, putting more women in Congress and trying to climb back toward a balance of power lost when the electoral numbers tipped to Donald Trump.

But the goals widened in the months since the Weinstein revelations ripped the Band-Aid off the unattended wounds of Hollywood, leading to a re-examination of the American workplace and, in fact, culture itself. Questions of respect, disparity in pay and unfair hiring practices — matters that haven’t been “questions” for women for decades — received fresh consideration. And, thankfully, #MeToo, and its attendant call for an end to sexual assault, discrimination and harassment, saw a resurgence. What’s at play is how we as a culture define progress, and how one gets to it.

These questions now play out every moment in the media, courtesy of both news organizations and the social channels that have become bully pulpit forums. Revelations uncovered after months of dogged reporting share space with raw confessionals that go viral and are then fodder for mind-numbingly debated cable news topics.

So far, the change has come in individual gestures. Kevin Spacey, the Oscar and Emmy winner now regarded as a serial sexual predator based on multiple accusations, has lost his Netflix series House of Cards and was quite literally erased from the film All the Money in the World. Fellow bad actors Russell Simmons, Louis C.K., Lauer, CBS This Morning anchor Charlie Rose and others have each been professionally picked off; what remains is the development of some overall strategy that will make the content business, among others, adhere to ethical rules of sexuality and fairness.

“This moment has created this space for people to tell their stories but we’re only responding to these as individual stories rather than saying this is much bigger than that,” Ann Russo, professor of women and gender studies and director of the women’s center at DePaul University, said. “Without critical social analysis, this stays at this individual level versus what to do to change society. That’s what I’m wondering: Is this a moment or a movement?”

Progress Report
The disparity in the ways media has covered progress and hysteria were on display both at the Today show and in the coverage of Ansari. From that day in late November, when Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb announced Lauer’s dismissal from Today, the show has seemingly run a two-prong approach to the issue: execs keeping a wary eye on public reaction and the ratings of Guthrie and Kotb, and having the co-anchors report on Lauer with only the necessary probing, while offering general coverage of the state of sexual harassment.

The new arrangement worked: On Jan. 2, Kotb was named official co-anchor of one of the most powerful, popular shows on television. And in a nod to this new normal, longtime executive producer of the show, and Lauer favorite, Don Nash, announced his departure; he was replaced by Libby Leist, a senior producer on Today, now the first woman to hold this exalted place in the business. Ad revenue at the show fell in December 24% year-over-year, but viewers are pleased with the pairing.

How this will change the show, and the industry, or whether this becomes simply another individual story, remains to be seen.

“When people say, we need to get more women in power and office, that doesn’t necessarily change the culture or our underlying structure,” Russo said. “It could make a difference but it also depends on what the [Today] show itself allows for. Media depends on making money. They’re not going to allow a lot of critical analysis of pervasive sexual issues. Some of these moves are good but it’s about having a bigger commitment than these symbolic gestures, especially since those gestures might deflect people’s attention and make them think, ‘Oh, everything’s OK.’ ”

That raw feelings remain pervasive, and divisive, has been obvious, and nowhere more so than in the case of Ansari, and “Grace,” the woman whose graphic account of their aggressive sexual encounter remains a focal point of discussion. Ansari, in some circles, is now regarded as disingenuous and hypocritical, a seeming feminist who sported a Time’s Up button during the Golden Globes, and whose 2015 book is titled, Modern Romance: An Investigation.

Date With Destiny
Others, however, angrily suggest Grace’s story reads like date porn, detailing an encounter that could have been avoided — or, at least, not reported on with such vigor and, in some views, vengeance. Ansari is well-liked and respected, and the concern is that Netflix — much as NBC did — will wait out the public opinion, and then decide whether or not he deserves to be heaped in with the likes of Spacey and Lauer for what is acknowledged to be less of an offense.

What’s concerning, too, is the part the media is playing in moving this narrative forward, even influencing it. Sources on polar opposites of the cultural agenda — Fox News Channel on one hand, The New York Times and The Atlantic on the other — lined up to delegitimize what felt, to them, like an attempt by the writer of Grace’s story to undercut the entire women’s movement with the account.

Fox News’s Tucker Carlson wondered if the movement is now hurting whom it meant to help; Ashleigh Banfield on HLN argued that Grace had little more than a bad date that she’s now elevated into a weapon in the greater narrative. “The #MeToo movement has righted a lot of wrongs and … [you] chiseled away at that powerful movement with your public accusation,” she said.

Samantha Bee took on the issue on Full Frontal, offering a “#sorrynotsorry” rebuttal, saying, in part, “a lot of people are worried about Aziz [Ansari]’s career — which no one is trying to end because we know the difference between a rapist, a workplace harasser and an Aziz Ansari. That doesn’t mean we have to be happy about any of them.”

Ali suggested that beyond the bitter recrimination, the talk is good. “There are levels,” she said, referring to the acknowledged difference between Ansari and, say, Louis C.K. and Weinstein. “It’s good to see there is a scale; when people say the movement has made things very black and white, that’s actually not the case. … It may seem like a witch hunt with immediate negative consequences but I do think there’s room for a little bit more subtlety.”

It’s that attempt to make reasonable decisions about something as unreasonable as sexual discrimination that — once the media noise dies down — could ultimately shape this movement into something extraordinarily powerful. Swifter, more historic movement will come about, Russo said, if these reported events “become less of a spectacle and more something we’re concerned about.”

It’s an opinion voiced with stunning validity by Ann Curry, whose career as a Today co-anchor was arguably cut short in part due to Lauer’s influence. “We’re a long way from fixing the problem; it’s more than a conversation,” she told Stephen Colbert during a recent visit to The Late Show. “It’s about action. It’s about not just telling people they can’t do certain things, it’s about changing the dynamic and the power balance within companies so that women are not seen as people who can’t rise to the top. Once we figure that out, we might have a chance to figure [it all] out.”

Actress and activist Rose McGowan will star in Citizen Rose, which premieres on E! Jan. 30.

The five-part docuseries will start with a two-hour special on premiere night, with the remainder of the episodes airing in the spring.

McGowan was named one of Time Magazine’s People of the Year for 2017 for her work exposing sexual harassment, including the alleged misdeeds of Harvey Weinstein. E! calls it “a project that reflects a dramatically changing world." The network said the docu follows McGowan "as she readies her memoir/manifesto, Brave, for release."

Read More: MCN's coverage of the #MeToo movement

“Rose McGowan’s courage in addressing sexual abuse and harassment in Hollywood ignited a conversation and inspired other women to speak out against their abusers,” said Amy Introcaso-Davis, executive VP, development and production, E!. “We look forward to taking viewers inside this talented, dynamic woman’s world as the first allegations unfold and she becomes a leading voice in a critical cultural change.”

Citizen Rose is produced by Bunim/Murray Productions with Jonathan Murray, Gil Goldschein, Farnaz Farjam Chazan and Andrea Metz the executive producers. McGowan is executive producing as well.

"You are formally invited into my mind and world," McGowan said. "I am thrilled to partner with E! to amplify my message of bravery, art, joy and survival. As I ready my book, Brave, I realized I wanted to show how we can heal through art even when being hounded by evil. I want to have a conversation with everyone, and most especially, you, about looking at things differently and seeing beauty everywhere.”

According to a new poll, fewer than a quarter of respondents say Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) should remain in the Senate in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations, now from two different women.

The Morning Consult/Politico poll found that 50% of voters said Franken should resign, including 49% of Democrats, while only 22% said he should not. Another option would be for the Senate to expel him, an unusual move, but one that has been raised were Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore, the subject of numerous sexual harassment and assault allegations were to win his Senate race.

Only 25% said Franken should not be expelled, while 46 said he should be. Moore's expulsion got the nod from 57% of respondents, while only 18% said he should be allowed to serve.

The senator is familiar to media watchers as both the former SNL cast member, author of books taking aim at Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives. and as one of the strongest critics of media consolidation in the Senate.

More of the respondents (65%) found allegations of sexual impropriety against former President Bill Clinton that about Donald Trump (49%). That was because4 while there was bipartisan support for the Clinton allegations--69% of Republicans and 65% of Democrats, the Trump allegations responses were heavily partisan, with 64% of the Dems saying they were credible versus only 37% of Republicans.

Voters were split over whether public officials

In the sexual allegation credibility category--the poll was taken before the revelations in the past few days regarding Charlie Rose and Rep. John Conyers and Disney's Jon Lasseter, 59% believed the allegations against Harvey Weinstein were credible; 50% said the Kevin Spacey allegations were credible and 47% said the Bill O'Rielly allegations were credible.

The poll was conducted Nov. 16-19 among 2,586 registered voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.

The poll comes as Franken faced a second allegation of groping.

Lindsay Menz told ABC News that Franken put her hand on her behind while taking a photo together at the state fair. In a statement, Franken said he didn't remember the photo--he takes thousands of them, he said--but said he "felt badly that Ms. Menz came away from our interaction feeling disrespected.”

Following a report that comedian Louis C.K. had behaved improperly with a number of women, FX Networks, which has produced five shows with him, said it had received no allegations against him in the eight years they have worked together.

In a story posted online Thursday (Nov. 9) by The New York Times, five women accused Louis C.K. of sexual misconduct. Before the story was published, a premiere of his movie I Love You, Daddy was canceled and an appearance on CBS's The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on was postponed.

Afterward, HBO pulled Luckie Louie, a series Louis C.K. starred in, and his comedy specials from its video on demand service. He was also dropped from a live special, Night of Too Many Stars: America Unites for Autism, set to air Nov. 18

The accusations come at a time when charges of sexual harassment in the entertainment business are being levied at top executives, agents and actors. The wave began with accusations against producer Harvey Weinstein and has led to the departure of Amazon Studios chief Roy Price and the firing of Kevin Spacey from Netflix’s House of Cards.

Related: Weinstein TV Production Business Shaken Amid Harassment Scandal

FX, which airs Louis C.K.’s series Louie, issued a statement after the NYT story broke. It said: “We are obviously very troubled by the allegations about Louis C.K. published in The New York Times today. The network has received no allegations of misconduct by Louis C.K. related to any of our five shows produced together over the past eight years. FX Networks and FXP take all necessary actions to protect our employees and thoroughly investigate any allegations of misconduct within our workplace. That said, the matter is currently under review.”

There were no signs that FX had severed ties with Louis C.K., and the network would not comment beyond the statement.

Louis C.K. and his spokeman have declined to comment.

FX is part of 21st Century Fox, which also owns Fox News Channel.

Fox News chair Roger Ailes was removed from his post last year after allegations of sexual harassment. The company also took top-rated host Bill O’Reilly off the air after reports that he paid several women to settle harassment charges.

Related: James Murdoch Says Fox Sent Strong Signal With Ailes, O'Reilly Dismissals

21st Century Fox is reportedly under investigation for not properly reporting those payments to women.

Amazon Studios head Roy Price was put a leave of absence after the producer of one of Amazon Prime's best-known shows accused him of sexually harassing her.

Amazon Studios's COO, Albert Cheng, was named interim chief.

Isa Hackett, executive producer of Man in the High Castle, based on her father Philip K. Dick’s book, said Amazon Studios chief Price asked her to attend an Amazon staff party and repeatedly and insistently propositioned her, according to an interview in The Hollywood Reporter.

The allegations come after Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was fired because of his sexual harassment of many actresses and other women over the years. Those activities had been largely hushed up until stories broke last week in The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Related: Weinstein TV Production Business Shaken Amid Harassment Scandal

Hackett told THR she went public partly because she was inspired by the women who had the courage to come forward to accuse Weinstein, a powerful show business executive who threatened to ruin people’s careers.

Related: WGAE: Sexual Harassment Is 'Hallmark' of Industry

Hackett said she reported Price’s behavior to Amazon executives immediately, and an outside investigator was brought in to talk to her and Amazon executives. After that, she didn’t see Price at any events involving Man in the High Castle and another show she’s producing for Amazon, anthology series Electric Dreams.

When the accusations first arose, Amazon told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement: “We take seriously any questions about the conduct of our employees. We expect people to set high standards for themselves; we encourage people to raise any concerns, and we make it a priority to investigate and address them. Accordingly, we looked closely at this specific concern and addressed it directly with those involved."

Price declined to comment, according to the paper.

Under Price, Amazon has been building up the video content available to Amazon Prime members, becoming a stronger competitor to Netflix and Hulu.