Sacha Gervasi attacked the designer weeks before the baby was born, lawsuit

Emmy-winning director and screenwriter Sacha Gervasi has subjected an interior designer to months of sexual harassment – all while awaiting a second child, according to a new lawsuit.

Gervasi is best known as the director of the 2012 Oscar-nominated Hitchcock starring Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren and Scarlett Johansson, and is the father of the former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell teenage daughter Bell. He “caressed” and harassed Diana Lands Nathanson on numerous occasions while awaiting the birth of his first child with his wife Jessica de Rothschild, Lands said.

Gervasi and de Rothschild welcomed their child together by a surrogate mother in December 2021, sources confirmed on page six, but just a few weeks later, on January 3, 2022, Lands, a divorced mother of three, claimed that Gervasi pressed her to the table, attacked and imprisoned her briefly.

In a statement to Page Six, Gervasi attorney Jeremiah Reynolds called the lawsuit “nothing but a desperate attempt to distract from a lawsuit already brought by my clients against Mrs. Lands for trying to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate they paid her to buy on their behalf and for the damage and destruction she had negligently caused to their home. “

A source close to Gervasi also claimed on Page Six Friday that the couple exchanged friendly text messages about the best hamburger spot in Malibu on January 3, followed by hundreds of “warm” messages along with “heart emoticons” in the following months.

Gervasi and de Rosthschild also filed a lawsuit against the Lands in May to reclaim nearly half a million dollars of property she had bought on their behalf, as Page Six had seen.

Lands, 57, claimed in her suit, as seen by Page Six, that Gervasi, 56, whom she had briefly dated in the 1990s, regularly “groped” her and made inappropriate sexual advances.

However, she said she believed she might overlook this as she became friends with his wife and had already worked on two projects for them.

Indeed, the lawsuit – which claimed that Gervais, the screenwriter of Steven Spielberg’s 2004 film The Terminal, was a “monster” and a “predator” – claimed: “Lands knew from her own experience that groping, rubbing and fondling women was part of the Gervasi’s modus operandi.

Nonetheless, she signed up to “major remodel and redesign” of the couple’s Hollywood Hills home.

However, on July 9, 2021, Lands claimed that the situation had escalated after she and Gervasi met with the house’s contractor.

After the meeting, she claimed in the lawsuit he first reported Daily Mail: Lands opened the car door and turned to say goodbye.

“They hugged, and then Gervasi started hugging tighter, saying how beautiful Lands were and that they should be together, and” couldn’t they figure out how to be together? “

Gervasi then allegedly tried to kiss Lands, and “when she refused, Gervasi pushed her into the car and forced his body against hers.”

The lawsuit’s allegations continued: “Gervasi pushed an erect penis against Lands’s body and tried to put his tongue into her mouth.

Lands kept turning her head and saying, “No, don’t do that.”

But “while Gervasi pressed against Lands, he placed his hands on her breasts, then moved them up her dress and buttocks, then pushed the underwear aside to put his hands between her legs.

“Lands told him to stop again and he wasn’t listening.

Ultimately, however, the lawsuit stated, “Lands was able to push him enough to get in the car and lock the door.”

She said she drove away “shaking with tears in her eyes” and told friends about the alleged assault.

Although Lands said she was “appalled” by Gervasi’s behavior, she continued working on the project as it was not due to return to Los Angeles until December 2021, when the project was due to end, some five months later. She also considered de Rothschild a “close friend” and had not yet received any payment for her services.

When it became clear that the Hollywood Hills house would not be ready by December, Gervasi and de Rothschild asked Lands to furnish and design their home in Malibu. During one meeting for this house, Gervais allegedly once again made “repetitive” advances towards the Lands, as claimed by the lawsuit.

The lawsuit then said that on January 3, 2022, weeks after the birth of their new baby, Gervasi attacked Lands in the Hollywood Hills area. They met to discuss plans, but instead tried to feed her Christmas candy.

The suit stated: “From the chair Gervasi was sitting in, he pulled Lands onto his lap, put his hand between her legs, kissed her neck, and tried to feed her with various candies. She struggled to get up from his lap, but Gervasi dragged her to the table and placed her on her. His hands were on her wrists above her head. He tried to stuff his tongue into her mouth as he hammered it into her.

Lands managed to get out from under him, and when she tried to leave, he closed the door so she couldn’t get out. Once again, Gervasi pressed his body against Lands and tried to kiss her on the neck and lips.

Lands kept telling him she had to stop and she had to get out of the room and out. Eventually she opened the door and was allowed to leave the room. He chased Lands to her car and tried again to tell her he wanted it.

The lawsuit added that although Lands had “made sure he would never be left alone with Gervasi again under any circumstances,” she continued to work for him and his wife as they had not yet paid her months to work in both their Hollywood Hills homes and and in Malibu, and she didn’t want them to “stiffen” her.

“However, she suffered from constant anxiety and restlessness, was unable to sleep normally, and the situation was having an impact on her health,” the lawsuit said.

Lands is now suing $ 677,000 for unpaid design work, along with attorney’s fees, costs and interest.

She is also seeking reasonable compensation to cover her emotional stress and punitive damages, Page Six lawyers said.

Gervasi’s attorney, Reynolds, argued that Lands offered not to prosecute Gervasi for sexual harassment if he “agreed to pay her several hundred thousand dollars more – even though she had already wrongly kept nearly half a million dollars in cash and property belonging to my clients.

“When my clients refused to shake off, Mrs. Lands continued these obviously false claims about Sacha Gervasi.

“We have hundreds of text messages and numerous witnesses that will refute Mrs. Lands’ charges in court and fully justify Mr. Gervasi,” added Reynolds.

Lands’s attorney Bryan Freedman told Page Six: and
money to avoid responsibility. I’m looking forward to the judgment day before the jury. “

Lands’s attorney Bryan Freedman told Page Six: and
money to avoid responsibility. I’m looking forward to the judgment day before the jury. “

In addition to directing “Terminal,” Gervasi also directed the 2010 documentary Anvil about a Canadian heavy metal band of the same name, which won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary.

In 2019, he won an Emmy’s “My dinner with Hervé”, with Peter Dinklage as the French actor Hervé Villechaize.