Stella Penn Pechanac
| Stella Penn Pechanac | |
|---|---|
| Image | |
| Born | 1983[1] |
| Died | |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Residence | |
| Occupation | Former Black Cube field operative |
| Known for | Posing as "Diana Filip" to befriend Rose McGowan for Harvey Weinstein (2016–17) |
| Parents | |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Children | |
| Sibling(s) | |
| Education | |
| Predecessor | |
| Website | |
Stella Penn Pechanac (born 1983) is a former operative of the Israeli private intelligence firm Black Cube. Using aliases including "Anna", "Diana Filip", "Adriana Gavrilo", "Eva Novak" and "Maja Lazarov", she approached targets in Black Cube's operations for Harvey Weinstein, against defenders of the Iran nuclear deal, and against the Canadian investment firm West Face Capital.[2] In 2019 and 2020 she gave interviews defending her work.[3][1]
Background
Pechanac served as a lieutenant in the Israeli Air Force, and is a graduate of the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and of the Nissan Nativ acting school.[3] Farrow wrote that she found few acting opportunities, and that Black Cube, whose operatives were "trained to conduct psyops—psychological operations designed to manipulate a mark", offered "an ideal compromise".[2] Vanity Fair described her in 2020 as a field agent with about a decade of experience.[1]
Timeline
| # | Date | Alias | Target / event | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2016 | Diana Filip, of "Reuben Capital Partners" | Emails Rose McGowan about a women's-rights initiative; the two then meet at the Peninsula hotel, Beverly Hills | [2][3] |
| 2 | October 2016 | Anna | Calls the New York magazine writer Ben Wallace, who was investigating Weinstein, from a UK number | [2] |
| 3 | Spring 2017 | Adriana Gavrilo; Eva Novak | Emails the wives of the Obama administration advisers Colin Kahl and Ben Rhodes, prominent defenders of the Iran nuclear deal | [2] |
| 4 | August 2017 | Diana Filip | Spends an evening with McGowan at the Peninsula hotel in New York, then emails her asking about Ronan Farrow | [2] |
| 5 | 2016–17 | Anna | Briefs Weinstein in person on months spent gaining her mark's trust and recording conversations | [2] |
| 6 | c. 2017 | Maja Lazarov, of "Caesar & Co." | Approaches employees of West Face Capital, soliciting damaging statements | [2] |
| 7 | 2017 | – | Identified by the Daily Mail as "Diana Filip" | [3] |
| 8 | 7 June 2019 | – | First interview, on Israel's Channel 12 | [3] |
| 9 | 7 January 2020 | – | Interview with Vanity Fair (Spain) as Weinstein's New York trial opens | [1] |
Weinstein operation
According to the Times of Israel, Pechanac, posing as "Diana Filip", a women's-rights advocate at a London investment firm, met McGowan several times to find out whether the actress was planning to go public with her rape allegation against Weinstein, and obtained the unpublished manuscript of McGowan's memoir. The supposed firm, "Rueben Capital Partners", had a website with a "Women in Focus" initiative; its London address belonged to an office-rental company.[3] Farrow reported that, at a meeting with Weinstein, the operative introduced as "Anna" described "the many months she’d spent gaining her mark’s trust and secretly recording hours of conversation", while her colleagues read aloud passages about Weinstein from McGowan's forthcoming book. After the evening in New York in August 2017, at which McGowan told her she had been speaking to Farrow, "Filip" emailed McGowan to ask about him.[2]
Her account
Speaking to Channel 12 in June 2019, Pechanac said: "My aim was to discover if someone was running a negative campaign against Weinstein, and if so, who was behind it." She added: "At the time he was really not a monster. He was not the man we know him to be today." Referring to Ehud Barak, who has admitted introducing Weinstein to Black Cube, she said: "When a former prime minister connects you to a very powerful man who looks you in the eye and says that ‘There is nothing to these accusations, I am under attack and need your help’ — so I went out to find out the truth."[3] To Vanity Fair she did not deny how the operation was structured, but did deny that its purpose was to discredit Weinstein's accusers: "My objective was to gather information."[1]
Other operations
Farrow linked the same agent, through photographs and social-media profiles, to approaches made in spring 2017 to Rebecca Kahl and Ann Norris, the wives of the former Obama advisers Colin Kahl and Ben Rhodes, at a time when the Trump administration was working to dismantle the Iran nuclear deal. "Adriana Gavrilo", also of Reuben Capital Partners, asked Kahl to meet to discuss her daughter's school. As "Maja Lazarov" of the recruitment agency "Caesar & Co.", the same woman approached staff of West Face Capital, a Canadian asset manager.[2] See Black Cube and the Iran nuclear deal.
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Javi Sánchez, Hablamos con la espía que trabajó para Harvey Weinstein: "Quiero ser libre de poder contar mi historia" (We talk to the spy who worked for Harvey Weinstein: "I want to be free to tell my story"), Vanity Fair (Spain), 7 January 2020.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 Ronan Farrow, Ronan Farrow’s Black Cube Chronicles, Part II: The Undercover Operative, The New Yorker, 8 October 2019.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 ToI Staff, Israeli who helped Weinstein undermine victims: ‘He wasn’t a monster then’, Times of Israel, 7 June 2019.