Asia Argento In Bed with 17-Year-Old Boy ... In Sexual Encounter 
 
 Asia Argento and 17-Year-Old Boy in Bed in Sexual Encounter 
 
 EXCLUSIVE 
 
 Asia Argento says she did not have sex with then 17-year-old Jimmy Bennett, but a photo and various text messages between Argento and a friend tell a very different story ... she flat-out says she had sex with him. 
 
 This is one of 4 photos Bennett, now 22, took in a Marina del Rey hotel room back in 2013. The then 37-year-old Argento and Bennett are on a bed shirtless, their heads on a pillow and their arms entangled. Sources tell TMZ the pic was taken after the 2 had intercourse. It's a crime in California for an adult to have sex with a person under 18. 
 
 Bennett later threatened legal action and, in April, Argento settled with him for $380,000 ... which her boyfriend, Anthony Bourdain, paid. 
 
 Argento released a statement Tuesday, saying, "I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett." 
 
 Above are partial text exchanges between Argento and one of her friends. Argento and the friend went back and forth in the midst of the backlash from the New York Times story that ran Sunday about her and Bennett. Argento's messages are in grey ... her friend's are in blue. 
 
 Argento says Bennett wrote this note (above) on Ritz-Carlton stationary -- the hotel where they hooked up -- and said, "Asia, I love you with all my heart. So glad we met again and I'm so glad your in my life. Jimmy." She texts her friend the note, saying, "He wrote me this afterwards and kept sending me unsolicited nudes all these years up until 2 weeks before the attorneys letter. 
 
 She goes on to say ... "it wasn't raped (sic) but I was frozen. He was on top of me. After, he told me I had been his sexual fantasy since was 12." 
 
 Argento has accused Harvey Weinstein of rape and is one of the first women to come forward in the #MeToo movement. Weinstein's lawyer, Ben Brafman, lashed out earlier in the week, saying, "This development reveals a stunning level of hypocrisy by Asia Argento, one of the most vocal catalysts who sought to destroy Harvey Weinstein." 
 
 As we reported, the L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. is reaching out to Bennett to determine if a criminal investigation is warranted. 
 
 We reached out to Argento's lawyer ... so far, no word back. 

 Jimmy Bennett, the actor who has claimed that he was sexually abused as a teenager by the Italian actress and director Asia Argento and who sought a cash settlement from her, issued his first public statement about the matter on Wednesday. He said he was too “afraid and ashamed” to speak up after the incident happened, and when The New York Times approached him in recent days with questions about the case. 
 
 “I tried to seek justice in a way that made sense to me at the time because I was not ready to deal with the ramifications of my story becoming public,” he said in a statement provided to The Times. “At the time I believed there was still a stigma to being in the situation as a male in our society. I didn’t think that people would understand the event that took place from the eyes of a teenage boy.” 
 
 The Times reported Sunday that in November, a month after Ms. Argento emerged as a leading figure in the #MeToo movement with her account of sexual assault at the hands of the movie producer Harvey Weinstein, Mr. Bennett sent her a notice of his intent to sue. 
 
 The document, sent to The Times through encrypted email by an unidentified party, described a May 2013 sexual encounter in a hotel room in Marina del Rey, Calif., when Mr. Bennett was 17 and Ms. Argento was 37. The age of consent in California is 18.
– "I had sex with him and it felt weird." So reads an alleged Asia Argento text that, if true, contradicts her claim that she never slept with an underage actor/musician in 2013. The #MeToo story took a turn Wednesday when TMZ posted text messages "between Argento and one of her friends" about the Italian actress' alleged encounter with Jimmy Bennett at a Ritz-Carlton in Southern California when he was 17 and she was 37. The age of consent in California is 18. "I didn't know he was a minor until the shakedown letter," the text continues. "... The horny kid jumped me." According to leaked documents, Bennett planned to sue her for emotional distress and lost wages, and she paid him $380,000. TMZ also posted a topless selfie of the pair snuggling and a purported love letter from Bennett to Argento on Ritz-Carlton stationery. Bennett "kept sending me unsolicited nudes all these years up until 2 weeks before the attorneys [sic] letter," reads a text. "I wasn't raped but I was frozen. He was on top of me." Meanwhile, Bennett has issued a statement saying he was too "afraid and ashamed" to say anything after the story broke, the New York Times reports. "I didn't think that people would understand the event that took place from the eyes of a teenage boy." With the LA County Sheriff's Department investigating, an apparent Argento text says "if I lose my job I will move to Africa or the Amazon forest." (A Rose McGowan tweet urging people to "be gentle" with Argento has drawn sharp criticism.)