Weinstein faces six new sexual assault charges
Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein has been charged with six more counts of sexual assault in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles District Attorney says.
Los Angeles officials have already started extradition proceedings to bring Harvey Weinstein to the city from a New York jail. Photo: AFP / Getty
The charges involve two victims of alleged incidents that occurred more than 10 years ago.
Weinstein now faces 11 sexual assault charges in Los Angeles County involving five women, District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a statement.
In March, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault.
During that trial in New York, the 68-year-old was found guilty of committing a first-degree criminal sexual act against one woman and third-degree rape of another woman.
The latest charges allege that he raped a woman at a hotel in Beverly Hills between 2004 and 2005, and raped another woman twice – in November 2009 and November 2010.
In January, Weinstein was charged with sexually assaulting two women in 2013. Then in April, a further charge alleging that he assaulted a woman at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2010 was added.
Los Angeles officials have already started extradition proceedings, however, this has been delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Another extradition hearing is set to take place in December.
In March, Weinstein himself was said to have tested positive for coronavirus in a prison in upstate New York.
A spokesman for Weinstein said: “Harvey Weinstein has always maintained that every one of his physical encounters throughout his entire life have been consensual. That hasn’t changed.”
The spokesman said they would not comment on the additional charges.
Allegations against Weinstein began to emerge in 2017 when the New York Times first reported incidents dating back over decades.
He issued an apology acknowledging that he had “caused a lot of pain”, but disputed the allegations.
As dozens more emerged, Weinstein was sacked from the board of his company and all but banished from Hollywood.
A criminal investigation was launched in New York in late 2017, but Weinstein was not charged until May 2018 when he turned himself in to police.
When he was sentenced to prison in March this year, jurors acquitted him of the most serious charges of predatory sexual assault, which could have seen him given an even longer jail term.
-BBC
