Film producer Harvey Weinstein has been charged with new crimes, though they remain secret for now, ahead of his trial in New York, Manhattan Criminal Court prosecutors said at a hearing Thursday.
The indictment will remain secret until a hearing on September 18, which will include the reading of the new charges.
The charges against Weinstein, 72, who was rushed to a New York hospital days ago to undergo heart surgery, could be linked to sexual abuse allegations by up to three new plaintiffs, according to prosecutors and CNN.
It’s an investigation that prosecutors began presenting to the grand jury in mid-August, without identifying the accusers by name but revealing the charges at a hearing last week.
One of the alleged attacks occurred between 2005 and 2006 at a Manhattan apartment building. Another occurred at a Tribeca hotel in May 2016. A third woman alleged that Weinstein sexually assaulted her at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, according to a transcript of the hearing obtained by CNN.
The judge will have to decide, as the prosecution has requested, whether to join these charges to the trial scheduled for November, linked to the accusations of Jessica Mann and Mimi Haley. But Weinstein’s defense opposes this.
Weinstein has been serving a 16-year prison sentence since February 2023, prosecuted by a California court, for the crimes of rape, sexual penetration and “forced oral copulation.”
The 2020 judicial process after the journalistic investigation by the New York Times and the New Yorker that sparked Me Too, led to the conviction of Harvey Weinstein to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual abuse, although he was acquitted of the charge of predatory sexual assault. , which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. However, last April, a New York appeals court overturned that conviction due to an error in the summoning of witnesses. For this reason, the trial must be repeated.
