Ronan Farrow
US journalist; reported Black Cube's Weinstein operation and identified Stella Penn Pechanac
| Ronan Farrow
| |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Known for | New Yorker reporting on Harvey Weinstein and Black Cube; identifying Stella Penn Pechanac |
Ronan Farrow is an American journalist whose reporting for The New Yorker documented the Israeli private intelligence firm Black Cube's 2016–17 operation for Harvey Weinstein and later named the undercover operative who approached Weinstein's targets. He also reported Black Cube's contemporaneous work against former Obama administration officials who had defended the Iran nuclear deal.
Weinstein reporting
On 10 October 2017 The New Yorker published Farrow's account of sexual-abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein. On 6 November 2017 he published "Harvey Weinstein's Army of Spies", which revealed that Weinstein's lawyers at Boies Schiller Flexner had contracted with Black Cube and paid it toward a $600,000 invoice, and that an undercover agent using aliases including "Diana Filip" and "Anna" had approached the actress Rose McGowan and journalists under false identities.[1] The piece reproduced contract language setting the project's objectives as stopping a "new negative article in a leading NY newspaper" and obtaining content of a book "which currently being written" — McGowan's memoir.[1] Farrow wrote that he and the New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor had themselves been emailed by "Filip".[1] The fuller case account is on Black Cube and Harvey Weinstein.
Identification of Stella Penn Pechanac
In October 2019 Farrow published "The Black Cube Chronicles: The Undercover Operative", naming the agent as Stella Penn Pechanac. He reported that "Anna, Adriana, Eva, Diana, Maja" were all her aliases, and that the same cover company, Reuben Capital Partners, had appeared in Black Cube's operation against defenders of the Iran nuclear deal.[2] Pechanac had earlier given interviews on Israel's Channel 12 and later to Vanity Fair Spain; Farrow's piece is the principal English-language identification tying those aliases to her.[2]
Iran deal reporting
On 6 May 2018 Farrow reported that the same network of operatives had compiled dossiers on former Obama officials Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl and approached people around them, naming the firm as Black Cube on the word of two sources and documents the magazine obtained.[3] See Black Cube and the Iran nuclear deal.
See also
- Black Cube and Harvey Weinstein
- Black Cube and the Iran nuclear deal
- Harvey Weinstein
- Boies Schiller Flexner
- David Boies
- Rose McGowan
- Stella Penn Pechanac
- Black Cube
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Ronan Farrow, Harvey Weinstein's Army of Spies, The New Yorker, 6 November 2017.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Ronan Farrow, The Black Cube Chronicles: The Undercover Operative, The New Yorker, 8 October 2019.
- ↑ Ronan Farrow, Israeli Operatives Who Aided Harvey Weinstein Collected Information on Former Obama Administration Officials, The New Yorker, 6 May 2018.