New York police preparing to arrest Harvey Weinstein
We are still accumulating evidence, it’s going very very well. We have a lot of information, we have people who are getting ready to go to grand jury.
NEW YORK: In a press conference on Wednesday, the New York Police Department’s Chief of Detectives has announced that they have gathered significant evidence in the rape and sexual abuse case against Harvey Weinstein.
“We are still accumulating evidence, it’s going very very well,” NYPD chief Robert Boyce said. “We have a lot of information, we have people who are getting ready to go to grand jury.”
When asked for next steps, Boyce said it is up to the Manhattan district attorney what happens next, as “it’s his case right now.”
An unnamed police official disclosed that the department is ready to go ahead with the arrest as soon as it gets the okay from Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance.
The district attorney’s office said it had no comment at this time.
The investigation came to the NYPD after an October report by actress Paz de la Huerta, who publicly said Weinstein raped her twice in 2010. Lucia Evans also publicly recounted a time in 2004 when she met the mogul as a college student and he forced her to perform oral sex, telling her story to NYPD’s Special Victims Unit.
Detectives have since been dispatched to Los Angeles and Paris to interview a number of Weinstein’s victims, while also seeking phone, business and
Robert Boyce, NYPD chief
medical records. Simultaneously, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is reviewing five additional cases against Weinstein, two brought by the Beverly Hills Police Department and three from LAPD.
Weinstein has repeatedly denied allegations against him, despite many women in the entertainment industry claiming years of harassment, abuse and rape. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office had previously investigated Weinstein in 2015, after a model accused him of groping her, only to back off from filing a criminal charge.