‘Get it over with, Harv’
Pig pleads innocent as Sorvino says: Admit it
DISGRACED MOVIE mogul Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty to charges that he raped one woman and forced another to perform oral sex on him — triggering a fiery response from one of his Hollywood accusers.
Weinstein’s brief arraignment in Manhattan Supreme Court Tuesday came six days after a grand jury voted to indict him on two counts of rape and one count of a criminal sexual act.
Weinstein, 66, appeared pale and haggard as he walked into the packed courtroom with a heavy limp.
Seated at the defense table, he declared “not guilty” when asked to make a plea.
Weinstein’s denial did not go over well with actress Mira Sorvino, who says he sexually harassed her in 1995.
“I think he should just plead guilty and get it over with,” Sorvino said in an interview with the SiriusXM radio show Signal Boost.
“Get it over with, Harvey. We all know you’re guilty. Let’s just do it,” she said.
The arraignment marked the latest low for Weinstein, whose mythical career was torpedoed last year when dozens of women came forward in bombshell exposés accusing him of rape and sexual misconduct.
Outside the courthouse, Weinstein’s lawyer called the case “eminently defensible” and said his team will work to convince prosecutors to drop the charges.
“We begin our fight now,” Benjamin Brafman said.
“Rape is a reprehensible crime. It is equally reprehensible to be falsely accused of rape,” Brafman added. “In his view, he has been falsely accused of rape.”
Weinstein (photo) faces up to 25 years in prison on each count if convicted.
The criminal sexual act charge relates to a 2004 encounter between Weinstein and an aspiring actress named Lucia Evans.
Evans told investigators that Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him after he invited her to his Miramax office in Tribeca for what she thought would be a casting meeting.
The victim in the rape case has not been identified. Prosecutors say the woman was assaulted at a Doubletree Hotel on Lexington Ave. on March 8, 2013.
Brafman has claimed the encounters were consensual, saying last week that “Weinstein did not invent the casting couch.”
Brafman walked that comment back Tuesday.
“I will never again use the term ‘casting couch,’ ” Brafman told Justice James Burke.
“Not because I think it’s inappropriate, but because of the outcry of people who have responded — some saying it’s good, some saying it’s bad.”
The fallen Hollywood king, who surrendered to police May 25 on rape and sex assault charges, turned down the chance to testify before the grand jury panel.
He was released after posting $1 million bail. AFTER FORMER President Bill Clinton bristled at the idea of apologizing privately to Monica Lewinsky, Mayor de Blasio — who was sworn in by Clinton for his first term — said the President had “wronged” the then-White House intern. “What he did was wrong, and she was wronged,” de Blasio said when asked whether Clinton owed Lewinsky (photo), with whom he had an affair that burst into the public sphere, an apology. “She was a young woman who was wronged by the President of the United States.” But de Blasio said he didn’t know enough about whether Clinton had previously apologized to her to say whether he ought to do so again now. “If there’s anything further he has to say to make clear that what he did was wrong, he should do it.”