Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has been indicted on additional sex crimes charges ahead of his retrial in New York, Manhattan prosecutors said at a hearing Thursday.
The indictment will remain under seal until Weinstein’s arraignment, which is scheduled for Sept. 18.
Weinstein, 72, is recovering from emergency heart surgery Monday at a Manhattan hospital and was not at Thursday’s hearing.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office disclosed at a recent court hearing that prosecutors had begun presenting to a grand jury evidence of up to three additional allegations against Weinstein, dating as far back as the mid-2000s.
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Prosecutors had been seeking to retry Weinstein after his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges was tossed by an appeals court earlier this year. It remains to be seen whether the new charges will be included in the retrial, as prosecutors hope, or handled as a separate case by the court.
The 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.
The 72-year-old co-founder of the film and television production company Miramax has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
He is next expected to appear in Manhattan court for a hearing in the case on Sept. 12. His retrial is tentatively slated for November.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
