Harvey Weinstein set to be arraigned on additional sex crimes charges in New York
NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein is expected to be arraigned Wednesday in Manhattan on a new indictment charging him with three additional sex offenses, his attorney said.
Weinstein’s attorney, Arthur Aidala, said the jailed ex-movie mogul will appear in court in person to plead his case. last legal hurdle after he was excused from a hearing last week while he recovered from emergency heart surgery.
The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been announced on the Hearing of September 12th last week that a grand jury had returned a new indictment accusing Weinstein of crimes not previously charged.
The charges remain secret until Weinstein is charged. Prosecutors have said the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults: in the mid-2000s at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, now known as the Roxy Hotel, and a residential building in Lower Manhattan, and in May 2016 at a Tribeca hotel.
At the same time, Weinstein is awaiting a new trial in his groundbreaking #MeToo case, after the New York Supreme Court overturned his 2020 conviction earlier this year.
Weinstein’s new trial is scheduled for November 12. Prosecutors have indicated they want to include the new charges in the new trial, but Weinstein’s lawyers oppose that, arguing it should be a separate case.
Aidala noted last week that because the indictment is still secret, it is not clear whether the new charges relate to some or all of the additional allegations heard by the grand jury.
“We don’t know anything,” he said outside court last week. “We don’t know what the exact charges are, the exact locations, the timing.”
Weinstein has long maintained that all sexual acts are consensual.
He is in a Manhattan hospital after undergoing emergency surgery on September 9 to remove fluid from his heart and lungs.
A judge ruled last week that Weinstein, 72, can remain in the Bellevue Hospital detention unit indefinitely instead of being transferred to the infirmary at the city’s Rikers Island jail complex.
In overturning Weinstein’s conviction and ordered a new trial, the New York Court of Appeals ruled in April that the judge had improperly allowed testimony against him based on allegations from other women who were not part of the case.
Weinstein, once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, co-founded the film and television production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Company and produced films such as “Shakespeare in Love” and “The Crying Game.”