NOW GIVE US OUR JUSTICE TOO
After disgraced mogul’s dramatic conviction, other accusers want the notorious sex predator to face further charges
CALLS grew worldwide yesterday for Harvey Weinstein to face further charges, following the disgraced movie mogul’s conviction.
Accusers in Britain said last night they wanted to see the convicted rapist face justice in the UK, where he is accused of a string of attacks.
Scotland Yard detectives have vowed to continue investigating Weinstein, even though the disgraced movie mogul faces up to 29 years in a US jail.
Eleven women in the UK have accused the father-of-five of 16 attacks, all committed when he visited London for events such as film premieres or awards ceremonies. Their calls for justice came as:
■ Weinstein was in hospital last night, having suffered chest pains on his way from a New York court to prison;
■ His lawyers said they were hopeful of getting bail pending an appeal and having him ‘home within a week’;
■ Prosecutors in Los Angeles were considering widening the scope of their own case against him;
■ A woman who claims she was 16 when he attacked her was said to be among new victims to have come forward;
■ One high-profile accuser said the Hollywood power broker could be ‘one of the biggest serial rapists in history’.
On Monday, a New York jury convicted Weinstein, 67, of sex attacks on two women.
He was remanded in custody for sentencing next month, but suffered high blood pressure and chest pains en route to Rikers Island jail. Last night he was under guard in the prison ward of Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, and is thought to need a wheelchair to move around.
His lawyer Donna Rotunno said he was ‘OK’, while his publicist said the move was ‘precautionary’. Another of his lawyers, Arthur Aidala, said they would challenge the conviction and appeal judges would ‘overturn this case in five minutes’.
He added: ‘We can get him bail pending appeal and hopefully he’ll be home within a week.’
Several ‘silence breakers’ – his alleged victims – gathered in LA yesterday to make fresh claims.
Pulp Fiction star Rosanna Arquette said: ‘There are new women, there will be new witnesses and one of them was 16 at the time.’ Actress Melissa Sagemiller added: ‘We definitely want to keep fighting, in LA, in London – whatever comes up.’
Officers from Scotland Yard have flown to the US to interview victims for their case, which was opened in October 2017, even though there seems little prospect of the US extraditing Weinstein for trial in Britain.
On top of a possible 29-year
‘Nowhere to hide’
sentence in New York, charges in LA, which include rape and sexual battery, could add another 28 years to his jail term. Only when all criminal prosecutions in America conclude will potential proceedings in Britain be considered.
Yesterday, one of his British victims, who has offered to help detectives, backed calls for Weinstein to face justice in the
UK. Former Oxford graduate Rowena Chiu, who was paid off when she accused Weinstein of trying to rape her, said: ‘Those of us who were his employees in London and victims of his in Europe want to see justice served on our home turf.
‘The fact that Harvey is being investigated in a country that is not his own shows that there is nowhere to hide.’
Scotland Yard’s child abuse and sexual offences unit has received 16 allegations of sexual assault from 11 women dating from the early Eighties to 2015.
Among those to have publicly accused Weinstein in London are US film star Uma Thurman, who claimed he attacked her in his Savoy hotel suite in the mid-Nineties, and British actress Kate Beckinsale. It is not known, however, if either is among those who have contacted UK police.
Norwegian actress Natassia Malthe said Weinstein raped her at a London hotel in 2008. UK actress Lysette Anthony, who has reported Weinstein over an alleged assault at her Chelsea home in the Eighties, said of his conviction: ‘No-one is above the law – not even Harvey Weinstein.’ Lawyer Jill Greenfield, who represents six women in UK civil compensation claims against Weinstein, called the US verdict ‘fantastic news’.
Mimi Haleyi, who stood up to Weinstein in court, said she would travel to the US to see him sentenced on March 11.
The production assistant, who lives in London, said she wept in a coffee shop when Monday’s guilty verdict was delivered.
Rose McGowan, one of Weinstein’s most high-profile accusers, told Good Morning Britain, which airs on UTV: ‘He could be potentially one of the biggest serial rapists in history because he had a full machine set up only to rape. Movies, that was his living, but there was a rape factory – that’s what the business was behind the scenes.’