Weinstein indicted on additional sex crimes charges ahead of New York retrial

Disgraced ex-movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has been indicted on additional sex crimes charges in New York ahead of a retrial in his landmark #MeToo case, Manhattan prosecutors said at a court hearing.

The indictment will remain under seal until Weinstein is arraigned on the new charges, which could happen as early as September 18.

Assistant district attorney Nicole Blumberg disclosed in court that the indictment charges “Mr Weinstein with additional crimes” and that multiple accusers are prepared to testify against him.

Weinstein, 72, is recovering from emergency heart surgery on Monday at a Manhattan hospital to remove fluid on his heart and lungs and was not at Thursday’s hearing.

Prosecutors retrying Weinstein’s overturned rape conviction disclosed last week that they had begun presenting to a grand jury evidence of up to three additional allegations against Weinstein, dating as far back as the mid-2000s.

They include alleged sexual assaults at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, now known as the Roxy Hotel, and in a Lower Manhattan residential building between late 2005 and mid-2006, and an alleged sexual assault at a Tribeca hotel in May 2016.

Because the indictment is under seal, it was not known whether the new charges involved some or all of the additional allegations.

“We don’t know anything,” Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said outside court. “We don’t know what the exact accusations are, the exact locations are, what the timing is.”

In April, New York’s highest court overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women and ordered a new trial. Weinstein’s retrial is tentatively scheduled to begin on November 12.

Prosecutors said they would seek to combine any new charges with ones previously brought against Weinstein so that they could be tried together. Weinstein’s lawyers oppose that, arguing that prosecutors were seeking to bolster their original case with additional charges involving other accusers.

Mr Aidala said Weinstein’s defence team will not be ready to go to trial in November on the new charges. By law, he said, they will have 45 days to file court papers challenging the prosecution’s request to try the original and new indictments at the same time, pushing the fight into the weeks before a possible trial.

Weinstein’s new charges come after prosecutors in Britain announced last week that they would no longer pursue charges of indecent assault against Weinstein.

Women began going public with accounts of his alleged behaviour amid the #MeToo movement in 2017.

Weinstein, who co-founded film and television production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Company, has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.

Also on Thursday, Judge Curtis Farber granted a defence request to have the ailing Weinstein remain at Bellevue Hospital indefinitely instead of being moved back to the infirmary ward at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex.

Judge Farber also ordered Weinstein’s attending physician at Rikers Island to testify at a closed-door hearing about the ex-studio boss’ health issues.

Weinstein’s surgery on Monday came after his third trip to Bellevue Hospital to have fluid drained, the judge said.

“If Mr Weinstein dies because no one has taken the authority to stop what may be the death of Mr Weinstein because of this back-and-forth transfer from one institution to another, it would be a miscarriage of justice to say the least,” Weinstein’s lawyer Barry Kamins told Judge Farber. “It would be a travesty of justice.”

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office had signalled for months that new charges were imminent against Weinstein, who was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, having produced films such as Pulp Fiction and The Crying Game.

In July, prosecutors told a judge they were actively pursuing claims of rape that occurred in Manhattan within the statute of limitations. They said some potential accusers who were not ready to come forward during Weinstein’s first New York trial had indicated they were now willing to testify.

In vacating Weinstein’s conviction, New York’s Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge, James M Burke, unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations from other women that were not part of the case.

Weinstein, who had been serving a 23-year sentence in New York when his conviction was quashed, was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape.

His 16-year prison sentence in that case still stands, but his lawyers appealed in June, arguing he did not get a fair trial in Los Angeles. Weinstein has remained in custody in New York’s Rikers Island jail complex while awaiting the retrial.

Published: 12/09/2024 by Radio NewsHub

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