Film producer Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to rape
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges of rape and sexual assault, in the first cases involving the disgraced producer to be tested in criminal court since scores of accusers emerged last year, New York news media reported.
Weinstein, 66, entered his plea in Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday morning, the New York Daily News reported, after a grand jury indicted him last week in two cases.
Weinstein turned himself in at a New York police station on May 25, and was taken to court in handcuffs for his initial arraignment. A judge ordered him released on a $1 million cash bail, on condition that he surrender his US passport and agree to wear a location-tracking device. He was ordered to remain in New York state or Connecticut.
More than 70 women have accused Weinstein – co-founder of the Miramax entertainment company and The Weinstein Company independent film studio – of sexual misconduct, including rape, with some allegations dating back decades. He has denied all of the allegations.
The accusations, first reported by The New York Times and The New Yorker last year, gave rise to the #MeToo movement, where hundreds of women have publicly accused powerful men in business, government and entertainment of misconduct.
Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office did not name the two women accusing Weinstein of sexual assault in the criminal complaint filed against him following a months-long investigation with the New York Police Department.
The details of one of the cases closely align with the account of Lucia Evans, a former aspiring actress who told The New Yorker that Weinstein forced her to give him oral sex in 2004.
If convicted on the most serious charges, Weinstein could face between five and 25 years in prison.
Once a fixture of elite Manhattan and Los Angeles society, Weinstein has been ostracized since the accusations became public. He went to Arizona for sex-addiction therapy.
The Weinstein Company’s board fired him, the company filed for bankruptcy in March, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expelled him. In years past, the academy had showered him with Oscars for a string of films that helped define independent cinema in the 1990s, including Shakespeare in Love and Pulp Fiction.
London’s Metropolitan Police and Los Angeles prosecutors have said they are also reviewing accusations of sexual assault against him.