Asia Argento, the 42-year-old actress reportedly agreed to pay Jimmy as much as $380,000 after he accused her of sexual battery during an alleged encounter in May 2013, but Asia’s attorney Mark Jay Heller has now confirmed she will cease making the payment.
He said in a statement obtained by E! News: “Asia will not permit any portion of the balance of the $380,000 payment to be paid to Bennett.”
According to Jimmy, they had sex in a California hotel room when he was 17 and she was 37.
However, the age of consent is 18 in the state of California. Asia has strongly denied the allegations and claimed that her late boyfriend, the celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, agreed to pay Jimmy the money he was requesting.
She previously explained: “Bennett knew my boyfriend, Anthony Bourdain, was a man of great perceived wealth and had his own reputation as a beloved public figure to protect.”
Jimmy is said to have received as much as $250,000 from Anthony, who took his own life in June this year. Asia added: “Anthony personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life.”
Meanwhile, her attorney said the actress “does not intend to prosecute Bennett for his conduct” and claimed his client’s voice should become a part of the #MeToo movement.
Jimmy previously spoke about his allegations against Asia, explaining why he’d waited to make his accusations public.
He said: “I was underage when the event took place, and I tried to seek justice in a way that made sense to me at the time because I was not ready to deal with the ramifications of my story becoming public.”
Jimmy added that he felt “ashamed and afraid to be part of the public narrative”.