A grand jury indicted Harvey Weinstein on rape and criminal sex act charges.
NEW YORK — Harvey Weinstein was indicted Wednesday on rape and criminal sex act charges, furthering the first criminal case to arise from a slate of sexual misconduct allegations against the former movie mogul.
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said the indictment brings Weinstein “another step closer to accountability.”
The announcement came hours after Weinstein’s lawyers said he would decline to testify before the grand jury because there wasn’t enough time to prepare him and “political pressure” made an indictment unavoidable.
A statement issued through a Weinstein spokesman said the 66-year-old film producer, who has denied the allegations, learned of the charges and the accusers’ identities only after turning himself in Friday. With a deadline set for Wednesday afternoon to testify or not, his request for more time was denied, the statement said.
Weinstein was charged Friday with rape and criminal sex act charges involving two women in New York.
Dozens more women have accused him of sexual misconduct from harassment to assault in various locales.
He has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex, and his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, called the rape allegation “absurd,” saying that the accuser and Weinstein had a decade-long, consensual sexual relationship that continued after the alleged 2013 attack.
The other accuser in the case, former actress Lucia Evans, has gone public with her account of Weinstein forcing her to perform oral sex at his office in 2004.