Monday, December 23, 2024

Harvey Weinstein indicted on new charges in New York

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Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein is facing new charges in New York City, prosecutors have said.

The details of the indictment will be sealed until he appears in court to be formally charged on 18 September, they said.

However, multiple reports from US media, including the BBC’s partner CBS News, have said the charges are linked to allegations of sex crimes.

Manhattan prosecutors recently told a court hearing they had evidence of up to three more allegations against Weinstein from incidents dating back to 2005.

New York prosecutor Nicole Blumberg said in court on Thursday that multiple accusers were prepared to testify against Weinstein, according to Time.

Speaking to reporters outside of court, Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala said: “We don’t know anything. We don’t know what the exact accusations are”.

“We know literally as much as you do,” the magazine reported him saying.

The judge in the case has ordered Weinstein to stay in a prison hospital for the time being, after the 72-year-old was rushed to a New York hospital for emergency heart surgery on Monday.

Mr Aidala told the court his client “almost died”, CBS News reported.

The BBC has reached out to Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers for comment.

Weinstein is awaiting a retrial in the city after an appeals court overturned his 2020 conviction of rape and sexual assault charges.

The case was thrown out after it was ruled that the judge in the original trial had allowed evidence to be presented about allegations that were not part of the case.

The retrial is scheduled for November and it is unclear if the new charges will be added to that indictment, or brought separately.

Once Weinstein’s legal cases are complete in New York, he is expected to return to California to serve a 16-year sentence for a rape conviction, against which he is also appealing.

More than 100 people have made sexual misconduct and rape allegations against Weinstein dating back to the 1970s.

Weinstein has maintained his innocence.

Before his fall from grace, he co-founded the film studio Miramax which produced award-winning films like Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare in Love.

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