Weinstein facing arrest on assault crimes charges

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

The two officials said the criminal case involves 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 began coming forward to accuse him of harassment or assault, triggering a cascade of accusations against media and entertainment figures that has become 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 attorney, Benjamin Brafman, declined to comment. Weinstein has said repeatedly, through his lawyers, that he did not have non-consensual sex with anyone.

Evans told The New Yorker in a story published in 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, telling The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow that she blamed herself for not fighting back.

Weinstein was fired from the company he co-founded and expelled from the organization that bestows the Academy Awards last fall after The New York Times and The New Yorker published articles about his treatment of women, including multiple allegations that he groped actresses, exposed himself to them or forced them into unwanted sex.