Harvey Weinstein has appeared in court over a new sex crime charge, accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a New York hotel in 2006.
The new indictment against the disgraced film producer was first announced last week, just days after he underwent emergency heart surgery at a hospital in Manhattan to remove fluid on his heart and lungs.
Prosecutors did not give further details at the time, but said new charges were not part of the case that led to his now-overturned landmark #MeToo conviction in 2020.
Appearing in court in Manhattan in a wheelchair on Wednesday, Weinstein pleaded not guilty to a new first-degree felony charge.
Pic: Jeenah Moon via AP
He wore a dark suit and a blue tie, with a large bandage on his right hand, and responded emphatically when asked for his plea. “Not guilty.”
Weinstein, 72, has always maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
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The new indictment accuses the former movie mogul of forcing a sex act on a woman at some point between 29 April and 6 May 2006, in a hotel in downtown Manhattan.
He is also charged with a criminal sexual act in the first degree and rape in the third degree, in relation to a previous New York State Supreme Court indictment, Manhattan’s district attorney Alvin Bragg Jr said. Weinstein has also pleaded not guilty to these charges.
“Thanks to this survivor who bravely came forward, Harvey Weinstein now stands indicted for an additional alleged violent sexual assault,” Mr Bragg said. “This investigation is ongoing. If you have been sexually assaulted, I assure you that our team of dedicated prosecutors, investigators, social workers, and many more stand at the ready to support you.”
No details about the accuser involved in the new charge have been released.
“She will be fully prepared to speak her truth at trial to hold Mr Weinstein accountable before a jury of his peers,” her lawyer, Lindsay Goldbrum, said in a statement.
Why was Weinstein’s original conviction overturned?
As well as this, Weinstein is also facing a retrial over his 2020 rape and sexual assault conviction, which was overturned by New York’s highest court in a landmark ruling in April.
The Court of Appeals ruled he did not get a fair trial as the judge who presided over the hearing had unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case.
Weinstein had been serving a 23-year prison sentence at the time. Despite the conviction being overturned, he has remained in custody due to another conviction last year, for the rape of an actress in Los Angeles in 2013.
The retrial is scheduled to start on 12 November, subject to possible delay due to the new indictment.
Prosecutors have said they will seek to include the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein’s lawyers say there should be a separate case.
Meanwhile, earlier in September, prosecutors in the UK dropped two charges of indecent assault brought in 2022, saying there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction”.
Once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, Weinstein co-founded the film and television production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Company, and produced films such as the Oscar-winning Shakespeare In Love, Pulp Fiction, and The Crying Game.
A judge agreed last week to let Weinstein remain indefinitely in the prison ward at Bellevue Hospital instead of being transferred back to the infirmary ward at New York’s Rikers Island jail complex.
