Harvey Weinstein, who escaped prosecution in Britain on Thursday, now faces the prospect of a fresh indictment in New York, where prosecutors retrying the disgraced movie mogul’s rape case are moving to potentially charge him with up to three additional sexual assaults.
Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service, which authorised two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein in 2022, announced Thursday that it had decided to suspend the proceedings because “there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.”
“We have explained our decision to all parties,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. “We always encourage any potential victim of sexual assault to come forward and report to the police, and we will prosecute those who meet the legal requirements.”
At the same time, the Manhattan district attorney’s office in New York has begun presenting to a grand jury evidence of up to three previously unfiled allegations against Weinstein: two sexual assaults in the mid-2000s and another sexual assault in 2016.
The New York grand jury’s term expires Friday and a vote on the indictment could take place by the end of the week, though the process is likely to extend beyond that. Prosecutors said they would seek to combine the new charges with those previously filed against Weinstein so they can be tried together.
In April, New York’s highest court overturned Weinstein’s rape and sexual assault convictions and ordered a new trial. The state’s Court of Appeals found that the judge in the 2020 trial unfairly allowed testimony from women whose allegations against Weinstein were not part of the case.
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Prosecutors shared information about the additional charges the grand jury is considering at a court conference Tuesday.
They include alleged sexual assaults at the Tribeca Grand Hotel, now known as the Roxy Hotel, and at a residential building in Lower Manhattan between late 2005 and mid-2006, and an alleged sexual assault at a Tribeca hotel in May 2016.
Judge Curtis Farber released the details as Weinstein’s lawyers were considering whether to have him testify before the grand jury, something they said he wanted to do. Weinstein was not present at the conference.
Defense attorney Arthur Aidala said Thursday he decided Weinstein would not testify, citing a lack of sufficient information about the new allegations. He criticized prosecutors for trying to add additional accusers to the case instead of simply retrying Weinstein’s original allegation.
“The case was dropped in April and they spent six months trying to find someone to come and look for him,” Aidala said.
Weinstein, 72, has denied raping or sexually assaulting anyone. He remains in custody in New York as he awaits a new trial in Manhattan, tentatively scheduled to begin on Nov. 12. He is expected back in court for a pretrial hearing on Sept. 12.
Weinstein became the most prominent villain of the #MeToo movement, which took hold in 2017 when women began to go public with allegations about his behavior. Following the revelations, British police said they were investigating multiple allegations of sexual assault that took place between the 1980s and 2015.
In June 2022, the Crown Prosecution Service said it had authorised London’s Metropolitan Police Service to bring two charges of indecent assault against Weinstein over an alleged incident in London in 1996. The victim was 50 years old at the time of the announcement.
Unlike many other countries, Britain has no statute of limitations for rape or sexual assault.
After Weinstein’s conviction was overturned, New York prosecutors said they intended to file new sexual assault charges against him and were actively pursuing the rape allegations that occurred in Manhattan within the statute of limitations.
At the original trial, Weinstein was convicted of forcibly performing oral sex on a film and television production assistant in 2006 and of third-degree rape for an attack on an aspiring actress in 2013. Those allegations will be part of his retrial. Weinstein’s acquittals on charges of predatory sexual assault and first-degree rape still stand.
After the retrial, Weinstein will begin serving a 16-year sentence in California for a separate rape conviction in Los Angeles, according to authorities. Weinstein was sentenced in Los Angeles in 2022.
Weinstein, co-founder of Miramax and The Weinstein Company, was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood and produced Oscar-winning films such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love.”
© 2024 The Canadian Press
