Harvey Weinstein Pleads Not Guilty to an Additional Sex Crime in New York
Harvey Weinstein was indicted again, months after New York’s highest court threw out his landmark rape conviction. On September 18, Weinstein once again pleaded not guilty on all counts, now that they have been fully specified.
Weinstein indicted, additional charges TBA
September 12, 2024: Prosecutors in Manhattan Supreme Court are once again seeking to convict Harvey Weinstein of currently sealed charges. “The grand jury has indicted Mr. Weinstein,” prosecutor Nicole Blumberg said in court. “We have not unsealed the actual indictment, so we will not announce the specifics of the charge.”
“He has been indicted,” Blumberg continued. “We would obviously request a date for when Mr. Weinstein is able to be present to be arraigned on the new indictment.” The prosecution will file paperwork to combine the new and old indictments as well as provide Weinstein’s defense evidence relating to all the accusers. Weinstein, who had a cardiac emergency earlier in the week, was not in court this morning as he did not receive medical clearance to travel from the hospital, proceedings revealed.
While details of the new indictment remain unknown, lead Weinstein attorney Arthur Aidala said at a press conference that, based on what prosecutors have told him, he believes that the charging papers relate to three alleged incidents: one around early 2006, another in 2006, and an additional in 2016. It’s not clear whether these incidents involve one accuser or three, though Aidala said he assumed it was probably three separate complainants. That could bring the total number of accusers in the Manhattan prosecution to around four or five. Asked whether the statute of limitations for various crimes said anything about the potential charges (less severe counts generally have shorter statutes of limitations), Aidala said, “I don’t anticipate them to be misdemeanors. I anticipate them to be serious felonies.”
That Weinstein was indicted comes as no surprise.
Prosecutors previously vowed to pursue charges against him a second time. “We believe in this case and will be retrying this case,” Blumberg said in Manhattan Supreme Court during the May 1 proceedings. At the time, Blumberg told the court that one of the women Weinstein was convicted of attacking was at the proceeding. Her presence signified still more that the prosecution wanted to pursue the case. “Jessica Mann is here in court. She’s one of the sexual-assault survivors, and she’s here today to show that she’s not backing down,” Blumberg stated. “She wanted everyone to know the truth and that the defendant may have power and privilege, but she has the truth.” The judge overseeing Weinstein’s case, Curtis Farber, said the trial would be tentatively scheduled for this fall.
Weinstein was found guilty on February 24, 2020, of rape in the third degree and criminal sexual act in the first degree for abusing two women, Mann and Mimi Haleyi. Weinstein was found not guilty of two predatory sexual-assault counts, which involved actress Annabella Sciorra’s claim that he raped her in late 1993. (As Weinstein was acquitted of these counts, he cannot be retried for them.) The appeals court overturned the case due to prosecutors calling three other accusers — Dawn Dunning, Tarale Wulff, and Lauren Young — to take the stand regarding Weinstein’s sexual misconduct, allegations for which he was not charged.
Weinstein fought his conviction, and the court sided with him, saying in its ruling, “The only evidence against defendant was the complainants’ testimony, and the result of the court’s rulings, on the one hand, was to bolster their credibility and diminish defendant’s character before the jury. On the other hand, the threat of a cross-examination highlighting these untested allegations undermined the defendant’s right to testify.”
Weinstein pleads not guilty
September 18, 2024: Harvey Weinstein appeared in court today to enter a plea of not guilty to a new sex crime charge in New York. Besides the case the Manhattan DA’s office is retrying, there is now an additional count of criminal sex act in the first degree. According to NPR, a woman alleges Weinstein forced oral sex on her “at some point between April 29, 2006, and May 6 of that year.” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement “Thanks to this survivor who bravely came forward, Harvey Weinstein now stands indicted for an additional alleged violent sexual assault.”
“We don’t know who, where, or what. We were told it is from 2006,” Weinstein’s rep Juda Engelmayer told People. “It’s an obvious attempt by the DA to somehow back door their parade of hosts of witnesses before the jury as the Appeals Court rebuked them for last time.”
A trial date has been tentatively set for November 12, but it is expected to be delayed. An additional scheduling hearing is on the books for October 2.
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