12th March, 2005 Hermosa Beach, CA- As Shirley Yanez, British Evangelist for Genius, philanthropist and published author lies fighting for her life, her partner and co author, Holly Yanez continues to battle the “Pontius Pilate of Pictures”, Mr. Harvey Weinstein, the current chief of Miramax Films.
The women’s fight for the truth to be told about the book, written to raise money for art and never intended for publication, has financially ruined them and put Shirley Yanez in critical condition in a Los Angeles Hospital due to stress and malnutrition. She has no money or insurance to cover mounting medical expenses and still no one is brave enough to help them stop Mr. Weinstein’s brutal, underhand persecution.
The reason Mr. Weinstein has not elected to sue them in his usual, heavy handed fashion is because he can’t. That is without exposing his dirty laundry. The original manuscript, a satirical roman a clef entitled “Looking For Bob” sat with the Miramax legal department for almost a year, in 2003, while he supposedly considered helping the women save their artist. However Harvey liked the idea so much he stole the concept, announced the publication of another book in the Los Angeles Times, November 2003, “The Twins Of Tribeca” and double crossed the women. All they had left in the world was their manuscript telling their true story. “Looking For Bob” was quickly revised and “Looking For Harvey Weinstein”, exposing everybody and everything they encountered, is a hilarious, self deprecating love story, self published in April, 2004.
Now almost a year later neither Miramax nor Disney have responded to countless pleas for media sanctions to be lifted and just go about their business waiting for the project to die.
If someone in the media doesn’t stand up soon and say enough is enough it will not be the death of a book Mr. Weinstein has ordered but the death of an author.