The pit was dark, almost unbearably claustrophobic. The dirt walls, where captors unknown to him had shackled his arms and legs, were so close together that he found it impossible to stretch out his lanky 6-ft. 2-in. frame. As for food, which they provided irregularly, he quickly realized he should eat the bananas first and save the more durable fruits for later. He never gulped down the water, uncertain when his kidnappers would deliver the next ration. A far greater challenge was to stay mentally fit. He found comfort in recollections of Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler’s classic novel about a prisoner locked in solitary confinement. After a while he began to reconstruct his own life story, then slowly recite, out loud, each heavily detailed chapter. “This is the verbal autobiography of Harvey Weinstein, aged 6,” he intoned as he conjured up the memories of his first-grade teacher and long- forgotten classmates. Sometimes, however, the horror of his predicament got the best of him, and he cried out for his captors to kill him and leave his body on the side of a road so that his children could find it and bury him properly. It was as he struggled against just that degree of despair that he heard the voices: “Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein.” They were calling his name. “I’m here!” he shouted hoarsely. His liberators dug through 6 in. of dirt, removed three wooden planks and four cinder blocks, pushed away a heavy metal plate and helped him climb out of his hellhole. He embraced them and then, in a gravelly voice that crackled with gratitude and relief, he asked a cop for a smoke. So ended a 13-day nightmare for Harvey Weinstein, the trim, elegant and, under normal circumstances, witty 68-year-old chief executive of Lord West > Formalwear, one of the country’s largest tuxedo manufacturers. Charged with his kidnapping were Fermin Rodriguez, 38, a collarmaker at Lord West; his younger brother Antonio, 29; and Fermin’s girlfriend Aurelina Leonor, 44. The Rodriguez brothers didn’t seem to have a personal grudge against Weinstein; Fermin reportedly told police his boss was a “nice guy.” All they wanted was $3 million. The kidnapping echoed last year’s tragic abduction of Exxon executive Sidney Reso, who died after Arthur Seale, a former security officer for the giant oil company, and his wife Irene imprisoned him in a storage locker. While kidnapping is still a relatively rare crime in the U.S., the number of cases investigated by the FBI last year jumped 23%, to 713 cases, 66 of them involving ransoms. The CEOs of big public corporations and entertainment celebrities have become increasingly cautious, installing high-tech security systems and hiring bodyguards. Nowadays, say security experts, the more tempting targets are the wealthy owners of small and medium-size private businesses — people like Harvey Weinstein.
