New York: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 Thursday.
The indictment will remain under seal until Weinstein is arraigned on the new charges, which could happen as early as Sept 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 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 Nov. 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.
Aidala said Weinstein's defence team won't be ready to go to trial in November on the new charges. By law, he said, they'll 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, who was the most prominent villain of the #MeToo movement in 2017 when women began going public with accounts of his behavior.
Weinstein, who co-founded the film and television production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Company, has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Also Thursday, Judge Curtis Farber granted a defense 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. 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 Monday came after his third trip to Bellevue Hospital to have fluid drained, Farber said. He has a variety of maladies requiring medication and treatment that causes him to retain water in his arms, legs, abdomen and around his heart, and he needs constant monitoring to ensure the buildup of fluids isn't deadly, 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 Farber. “It would be a travesty of justice.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office had signaled 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. Burke is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said one of the accusers in that case, Jessica Mann, is prepared to testify against him again. It's unclear if the second accuser, Mimi Haley, would participate. Her lawyer, Gloria Allred, declined to comment.
The Associated Press does not generally identify people alleging sexual assault unless they consent to be named, as Haley and Mann did.
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.
