Harvey Weinstein was arraigned on an extra intercourse crimes cost in a New York Metropolis courtroom Wednesday, roughly two months forward of a retrial within the disgraced Hollywood producer’s landmark #MeToo case.
Weinstein, who arrived on the Manhattan courthouse in a wheelchair, pleaded not responsible to at least one rely of prison sexual act within the first diploma. He’s recovering from emergency coronary heart surgical procedure this month, and his lawyer mentioned he takes 19 medicines.
Within the New York penal code, a prison sexual act within the first diploma considerations partaking in “oral sexual conduct or anal sexual conduct with one other individual” by “forcible compulsion.” It’s a class B felony.
In a press release, Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg mentioned the cost stemmed from the alleged sexual assault of a girl in a decrease Manhattan lodge someday between April 29, 2006 and Could 6, 2006.
“Due to this survivor who bravely got here ahead, Harvey Weinstein now stands indicted for an extra alleged violent sexual assault,” Bragg mentioned. “This investigation is ongoing.”
In all, more than 80 women have accused Weinstein of sexual assault or harassment going again many years. The allegations impressed the #MeToo motion, a worldwide reckoning with abuses of energy throughout leisure and different industries. Weinstein has repeatedly denied the claims, insisting the encounters in query had been consensual.
In early 2020, a jury in New York convicted Weinstein of third-degree rape towards Jessica Mann, a former aspiring actor, and first-degree prison intercourse act towards Mimi Haley, a former “Mission Runway” manufacturing assistant. (He was acquitted of two counts of predatory sexual assault and a rely of first-degree rape.)
However in April, New York’s state Court docket of Appeals overturned Weinstein’s 23-year jail sentence in a 4-3 resolution, blasting the trial decide for permitting ladies to testify about allegations that weren’t a part of the costs. The courtroom argued the transfer was “extremely prejudicial.”
“The treatment for these egregious errors is a brand new trial,” the courtroom wrote.
Weinstein’s retrial is tentatively scheduled to start Nov. 12. Haley’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, mentioned her shopper has agreed to testify towards Weinstein once more as a result of “she believes that it’s the proper factor to do.” In a press release final week, Mann mentioned she plans to make use of her “voice” towards him.
“I sit up for persevering with to make use of it as I face Harvey once more in courtroom quickly and show that my life is effective,” Mann mentioned. “That, I do know now, is one thing he won’t ever have the ability to take away.”
The Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace introduced in July that it deliberate to retry Weinstein, and Manhattan prosecutors introduced at a courtroom listening to final week that he had been indicted on new prices.
He has remained in custody on the Rikers Island jail advanced awaiting retrial, however a decide final week granted a protection request to let him keep at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan as a substitute of being taken again to the jail’s infirmary ward.
Along with the New York case, Weinstein was found guilty of 1 rely of rape and two counts of sexual assault in a Los Angeles trial in late 2022. (The jury acquitted him of a rely of sexual battery by restraint and failed to succeed in a verdict on three different sexual assault counts.) He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Weinstein’s authorized staff is appealing the Los Angeles verdict. In each trials, Weinstein pleaded not responsible and selected to not take the witness stand in his personal protection.
Within the Nineties and the 2000s, Weinstein was a titan of the film enterprise as a co-head of Miramax and The Weinstein Firm. He styled himself as a present enterprise kingmaker, producing seminal unbiased movies (together with “Pulp Fiction”) and distributing Oscar-winning dramas akin to “The English Affected person,” “Shakespeare in Love” and “The King’s Speech.”
However his reign atop Hollywood got here crashing down in October 2017 after investigative journalists at The New York Occasions and The New Yorker printed articles about allegations of serial sexual misconduct. The flood of allegations impressed different ladies to return ahead with claims about different highly effective males in leisure, finance and different industries.
Adam Reiss and Lisa Rubin contributed.
