Disgraced former film mogul Harvey Weinstein has been indicted on extra intercourse crime costs in New York forward of a retrial in his landmark #MeToo case, Manhattan prosecutors stated at a courtroom listening to on Thursday (12 September 2024).
The indictment will stay sealed till Weinstein is arraigned on the brand new costs, which may happen as early as Sept. 18. Deputy District Lawyer Nicole Blumberg revealed in courtroom that the indictment costs “Mr. Weinstein with extra crimes” and that a number of accusers are ready to testify in opposition to him.
Weinstein, 72, is recovering from emergency coronary heart surgical procedure carried out Monday at a Manhattan hospital to take away fluid from his coronary heart and lungs and was not current at Thursday’s listening to.
Prosecutors retrying Weinstein’s overturned rape conviction revealed final week that they’d begun presenting to a grand jury proof of as many as three extra allegations in opposition to Weinstein, relationship again to the mid-2000s.
They embrace alleged sexual assaults on the Tribeca Grand Resort, now often called the Roxy Resort, and at a residential constructing in Decrease Manhattan between late 2005 and mid-2006, and an alleged sexual assault at a Tribeca lodge in Might 2016.
As a result of the indictment is sealed, it’s not identified whether or not the brand new costs concerned some or the entire extra allegations.
“We do not know something,” Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, stated outdoors the courtroom. “We do not know what the precise allegations are, the precise places, or the precise time.”
In April, New York’s highest courtroom overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault costs involving two girls and ordered a brand new trial. Weinstein’s new trial is tentatively scheduled to start on Nov. 12.
Prosecutors stated they’d search to mix the brand new costs with these beforehand filed in opposition to Weinstein in order that they may very well be tried collectively. Weinstein’s attorneys oppose that, arguing that prosecutors have been in search of to bolster their authentic case with extra costs involving different accusers.
The protection will problem the trial on new costs
Aidala stated Weinstein’s protection staff gained’t be able to go to trial in November on the brand new costs. By legislation, he stated, they may have 45 days to file courtroom papers difficult the prosecution’s request to strive the unique and new costs on the similar time, pushing the struggle to the weeks earlier than a attainable trial.
The brand new costs in opposition to Weinstein come after prosecutors in Britain introduced final week that they’d not pursue indecent assault costs in opposition to Weinstein, who was probably the most distinguished villain of the #MeToo motion in 2017 when girls started going public with accounts of his habits.
Weinstein, co-founder of movie and tv manufacturing firms Miramax and The Weinstein Firm, has lengthy maintained that any sexual exercise was consensual.
Additionally Thursday, Choose Curtis Farber granted a protection request that an ailing Weinstein stay at Bellevue Hospital indefinitely somewhat than be transferred again to the infirmary at New York Metropolis’s Rikers Island jail complicated. Farber additionally ordered Weinstein’s physician at Rikers Island to testify at a closed-door listening to in regards to the former studio chief’s well being issues.
Weinstein’s surgical procedure came about Monday after his third go to to Bellevue Hospital to have fluid drained, Farber stated. He suffers from a wide range of circumstances that require medicine and therapy that trigger him to retain fluid in his arms, legs, stomach and round his coronary heart, and he wants fixed monitoring to ensure the fluid buildup would not grow to be life-threatening, the decide stated.
“If Mr. Weinstein dies as a result of nobody has taken the authority to cease what may very well be his demise as a consequence of this switch backwards and forwards from one establishment to a different, it could be a miscarriage of justice, to say the least,” Weinstein’s legal professional, Barry Kamins, advised Farber. “It could be a travesty of justice.”
Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg’s workplace had signaled for months that new costs have been imminent in opposition to Weinstein, as soon as some of the highly effective individuals in Hollywood, having produced movies together with “Pulp Fiction” and “The Crying Sport.”
In July, prosecutors advised a decide they have been actively pursuing the Manhattan rape allegations inside the statute of limitations. They stated some potential accusers who weren’t prepared to come back ahead throughout Weinstein’s first trial in New York had indicated they have been now keen to testify.
In overturning Weinstein’s conviction, the New York Court docket of Appeals dominated that the trial decide, James M. Burke, had wrongfully allowed him to testify in opposition to himself based mostly on allegations from different girls who weren’t a part of the case. Burke is not on the courtroom.
Prosecutors have stated one of many accusers in that case, Jessica Mann, is keen to testify in opposition to him once more. It’s unclear whether or not the second accuser, Mimi Haley, will take part. Her legal professional, Gloria Allred, declined to remark.
The Related Press typically doesn’t establish individuals who report sexual assault except they consent to be recognized, as Haley and Mann did.
Weinstein, who was serving a 23-year sentence in New York when his conviction was overturned, was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of one other rape.
His 16-year jail sentence in that case stays in impact, however his attorneys appealed in June, arguing that he didn’t obtain a good trial in Los Angeles. Weinstein has remained detained on the Rikers Island jail complicated in New York whereas awaiting the brand new trial.
Printed – September 12, 2024 11:31 pm IST
