Harvey Weinstein indicted on new charges in New York – days after being rushed to hospital for heart surgery
New charges come after disgraced media mogul’s conviction in New York was overturned by an appeals court in April
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Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein has been indicted on new criminal charges in New York just days after he was rushed to hospital to undergo emergency heart surgery, according to prosecutors.
Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg said on Thursday morning that a grand jury had handed down an indictment against the convicted sex offender.
Details of the indictment are unclear as the documents remain sealed with the DA planning to consolidate all the charges into one superseding indictment, Deadline reported.
Prosecutors had “informed the defense just prior to being present in court this morning,” Blumberg said.
Weinstein’s next court hearing is set for September 18.
The Independent has emailed the DA’s office for more information.
The new charges arrive days after the 72-year-old disgraced media mogul was rushed from Rikers Island prison on Monday to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan due to “a massive amount of fluid in his lungs.”
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Weinstein, told the PA news agency that he was in “stable” condition after emergency heart surgery.
Weinstein was found guilty in 2020 of rape and sexual assault in New York.
But his conviction was overturned in April by a state appeals court, which argued the court had made “egregious errors” by allowing prosecutors to call witnesses whose allegations were not related to the charges at hand.
A retrial has been tenatively scheduled for November 13.
Lindsay Goldbrum, a lawyer for the six women who accused Weinstein, called the decision to overturn his conviction a “leap backward for the rule of law” and said it could deter future sexual assault survivors from coming forward. “To all victims of sexual assault who are re-traumatised by today’s ruling, I am so sorry,” she told NBC News at the time.
Ashley Judd, the first actor to accuse Weinstein publicly of sexual assault, called the appeals court’s decision “unfair to survivors.”
Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala, on the other hand, praised the appeals court decision. “Today’s legal ruling is a great day for America because it instills in us the faith that there is a justice system, that a judge... will say: ‘I don’t care who the defendant is, if it’s a former president of the United States, or the most storied Hollywood producer of our generation. The law applies to everyone,’” Aidala said in April.
Despite his New York conviction being tossed, the Hollywood mogul is still serving a prison sentence following a separate rape and sexual misconduct conviction in Los Angeles. In that case, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison in February 2023.
Weinstein filed an appeal against the California conviction in June. He continues to deny that he ever raped or sexually assaulted anyone, maintaining that the sexual activity was consensual.
The new indictment marks the latest saga in the prolific film producer’s catastrophic fall from grace. Weinstein was once considered one of Hollywood’s most powerful producers, known for his Oscar-winning films including Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love, and Gangs of New York.
But in 2017, his image shifted from Hollywood mogul to prolific sex offender as several high-profile celebrities accused him of rape and sexual abuse – a shift that prompted the #MeToo movement.