Weinstein charged with sex crimes in L.A. on eve of N.Y. trial
Los Angeles — Los Angeles prosecutors charged Harvey Weinstein on Monday with sexually assaulting two women on successive nights during Oscars week in 2013, bringing the new case against the disgraced Hollywood mogul on the eve of jury selection for his New York trial.
The case, brought by a task force set up by the Los Angeles County district attorney to handle sex-crime allegations against major entertainment figures, now puts Weinstein in deep legal peril on both coasts, where he built his career as the one of the most powerful — and feared — figures in show business before a barrage of allegations from more than 75 women led to his downfall and ignited the #MeToo movement.
Weinstein, 67, was charged with raping a woman at a Los Angeles hotel on Feb. 18, 2013, after pushing his way inside her room, then sexually assaulting a woman in a Beverly Hills hotel suite the next night. He could get up to 28 years in prison on charges of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by use of force and sexual battery.
“We see you, we hear you and we believe you”’ District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in announcing the charges, addressing herself to the movie producer’s accusers.
Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said the charges open the “next chapter” for a man “who has gotten away with too much for too long,” while Beverly Hills Chief Sandra Spagnoli called the cases “horrendous crimes perpetrated by a sexual predator.”
Lawyers for Weinstein had no immediate response to the new charges, though he has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Jury selection is set to begin today in the New York case, in which Weinstein is charged with raping a woman in a New York City hotel room in 2013 and forcibly performing a sex act on another woman, Mimi Haleyi, in 2006.
He has said any sexual activity was consensual. If convicted of the most serious charges against him in New York, two counts of predatory sexual assault, he faces a mandatory life sentence.