NEW YORK (AP) — Disgraced former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein Manhattan prosecutors announced at a court hearing on Thursday that additional sex crime charges have been filed in New York ahead of a retrial in the landmark #MeToo case.
The indictment will be kept secret until Weinstein appears in court on the new charges, which could happen as early as September 18. Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg said in court that the indictment charges “additional charges against Mr. Weinstein” and that multiple accusers are prepared to testify against him.
Weinstein, 72, was recovering from emergency heart surgery on Monday at a Manhattan hospital to remove fluid from his heart and lungs and did not attend Thursday’s hearing.
Prosecutors retrying Weinstein’s overturned rape conviction said last week they had begun presenting evidence to a grand jury for up to three additional charges against Weinstein dating back to the mid-2000s.
These include sexual assaults that allegedly took place at the TriBeCa Grand Hotel, now known as the Roxy Hotel, and a residential building in Lower Manhattan from late 2005 to mid-2006, as well as a sexual assault that allegedly took place at a TriBeCa hotel in May 2016.
Because the indictment is confidential, it is unclear whether the new charges include some or all of the additional charges.
“We don’t know anything,” Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said outside court. “We don’t know the exact charges, we don’t know the exact locations, we don’t know the timing.”
In April, The New York State Supreme Court overturned Weinstein’s conviction for rape and sexual assault involving two women in 2020 and ordered a new trial. Weinstein’s retrial is tentatively scheduled to begin on November 12.
Prosecutors have said they want the new charges to be combined with those previously brought against Weinstein so they can be tried together. Weinstein’s lawyers have opposed this, arguing that prosecutors are trying to bolster their original case with additional charges against other accusers.
Aidala said Weinstein’s defense team would not be able to make it to trial on the new charges, scheduled for November, because by law they must file briefs within 45 days challenging prosecutors’ request to try the original and new indictments at the same time, meaning the fight would drag on until weeks before the trial is due to begin, he said.
The new allegations against Weinstein were announced by British prosecutors last week. No longer pursued The lewd conduct charges against Weinstein, the most famous villain, #MeToo In 2017, women began speaking out publicly about his behavior.
Weinstein, co-founder of the film and television production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Company, has long maintained that his sexual acts were consensual.
Also Thursday, Judge Curtis Farber granted a defense request to keep the ailing Weinstein indefinitely at Bellevue Hospital rather than returning him to the infirmary at New York City’s Rikers Island prison. Farber also ordered Weinstein’s doctor at Rikers Island to testify at a closed-door hearing about the former studio president’s health issues.
Judge Farber said Weinstein’s surgery on Monday came after his third trip to Bellevue Hospital to have fluid drained. Weinstein has a variety of conditions that require medications and treatments that cause fluid to build up in his arms, legs, abdomen and around his heart, and he needs constant monitoring to make sure the fluid buildup doesn’t become fatal, the judge said.
“If Mr. Weinstein died because of the repeated transfers from one institution to another that could have resulted in his death and nobody had the power to stop it, that would be a miscarriage of justice to say the least,” Weinstein’s lawyer, Barry Cummins, told Farber. “It would be a travesty of justice.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has hinted for months that new charges were imminent against Weinstein, once one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures, who produced films such as “Pulp Fiction” and “The Crying Game.”
In July, prosecutors told the judge: Actively pursue The Manhattan rape allegations were made within the statute of limitations, and they said some potential accusers who weren’t prepared to testify during Weinstein’s first New York trial have now indicated they are willing to do so.
in Overturn Weinstein’s convictionThe New York State Court of Appeals ruled that Judge James M. Burke, who is no longer a judge, improperly allowed testimony against him based on allegations from other women who were not connected to the case.
Prosecutors said one of the plaintiffs in the case, Jessica Mann, is prepared to testify against the defendants again. It is unclear whether the second plaintiff, Mimi Haley, will testify. Her lawyer, Gloria Allred, declined to comment.
The Associated Press does not typically publish the names of people who allege sexual assault unless they agree to be named, as Ms. Haley and Ms. Munn did.
Weinstein was serving a 23-year sentence in New York at the time his conviction was vacated. Convicted in Los Angeles Another rape case will occur in 2022.
The 16-year prison sentence he received in that case remains in effect, but his lawyer Appeal in JuneWeinstein claimed he did not receive a fair trial in Los Angeles. Remaining He is being held at New York’s Rikers Island prison while awaiting retrial.
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Associated Press writer Philippe Marcelo contributed to this report.
