Weinstein expected to turn himself in

NEW YORK — Law enforcement officials say Harvey Weinstein is expected to surrender to authorities today to face criminal charges in a months-long investigation into allegations that he sexually assaulted women.

The two officials said the criminal case involved allegations by Lucia Evans, a former actress who was among the first women to speak out about Weinstein. The case would be the first criminal charge against the film producer since scores of women accused him of harassment or assault, triggering a cascade of accusations against media and entertainment figures that has become known as the MeToo movement.

A grand jury has been hearing evidence in the case for weeks.

The precise charges Weinstein is expected to face weren’t immediately clear. Weinstein’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, declined to comment.

Weinstein has said repeatedly, through his lawyers, that he did not have nonconsensual sex with anyone.

Evans told the New Yorker last October that Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex during a daytime meeting at his New York office in 2004, the summer before her senior year at Middlebury College.

“I said, over and over: ‘I don’t want to do this, stop, don’t,’ ” she told the magazine. “I tried to get away, but maybe I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t want to kick him or fight him.”

She didn’t report the incident to police at the time.

In recent months, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has come under public pressure to make a criminal case. Women’s groups have accused the Democrat of being too deferential to Weinstein and too dismissive of his accusers.

In March, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo took the extraordinary step of ordering the state’s attorney general to investigate whether Vance acted properly in 2015 when he decided not to prosecute Weinstein over a previous allegation of unwanted groping, made by a model.

Vance had insisted any decision would be based on the strength of the evidence, not on political considerations.