Court Warns Michael Ovitz After He Stormed Out of CAA Deposition During Epstein Questions

A court has turned down a bid from Julia Ormond’s lawyers to issue a bench warrant for the arrest of CAA co-founder Michael Ovitz, who walked out of a June deposition after being prodded about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

New York state court justice Adam Silvera found on Thursday that Ovitz shouldn’t be held in contempt of court, though he was ordered to complete the questioning.

During the deposition, Ovitz was asked about his continuing association with Epstein after the disgraced financier’s conviction for sex crimes. At one point, he stopped engaging. “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.”

The inquiry related to Ovitz’s assertion that he would’ve cut ties with Weinstein had he known about the former movie mogul’s history of sexual misconduct. Ormond, who rose to prominence in the ’90s after starring in Legends of the Fall, First Knight and Sabrina, had claimed that CAA’s top brass turned a blind eye to Weinstein’s crimes and failed to warn her about him before a 1995 meeting that led to her being assaulted. Ovitz was CAA’s chairman in the period immediately preceding the alleged incident.

In the deposition, Ovitz said he would’ve investigated any allegation of sexual misconduct by Weinstein against one of his clients. Asked what he would’ve done if the claim was substantiated, Ovitz replied that CAA “surely wouldn’t have done business” with him.

“I didn’t like his methodology of business,” Ovitz added. “He was a bully and — and he and I got into it multiple times. I talked to him as little as possible.”

Lawyers for Ormond then turned to Ovitz’s relationship with Epstein. Tensions flared when Ovitz was questioned about whether he continued to associate with the disgraced financier after he learned that Epstein was convicted of sex crimes. He stood up from his chair, pointed at Ormond’s lawyer and said, “I’m done with this. OK? You are out of line.”

In Thursday’s order, the court said that Ovitz “inappropriately terminated” the questioning. “Ovitz is warned that proper deposition procedures must be followed,” Silvera wrote.

Still, the judge stopped short of issuing a bench warrant since Ormond’s lawyers weren’t sufficiently impaired by Ovitz leaving the deposition before it ended.

“The decision makes clear that Mr. Ovitz was not entitled to storm out of the deposition, and that he is not above the law,” said Kevin Mintzer, Meredith Firetog and Effie Blassberger, lawyers for Ormond, in a statement. “We look forward to resuming the deposition and trust that Mr. Ovitz will behave himself.”

Jeffrey Mitchell, a lawyer for Ovitz, stresses that his client “has nothing to do with the Ormond case, her claims or events that happened after he left CAA in 1995.” He adds, “At the deposition, it was [Ovitz’s] view that Ormond’s lawyer Kevin Mintzer was being intentionally abusive and trying to smear his name and he left as a result.”

CAA has also maintained that the case doesn’t concern Ovitz, whose legal fees are being paid for by the agency.

Friendly communications between Ovitz and Epstein surfaced earlier this year when the Justice Department released a trove of materials on the disgraced financier. The emails from 2012 showed that the pair planned to meet at Epstein’s Manhattan home and off the coast of St. Barts.