Manhattan prosecutors Tuesday said they were “actively pursuing” additional allegations of sexual assault against disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein ahead of a new trial that is likely to begin in the fall.
Nicole Blumberg, an assistant district attorney, said in Manhattan criminal court that her office had identified allegations of rape and sexual assault against Weinstein that had occurred within the statute of limitations, and that prosecutors planned to ask a grand jury to indict him.
When the judge in the case, Justice Curtis Farber, pressed for a date when a grand jury could hear new charges, Blumberg could not give one, but she said prosecutors could be prepared to go to trial by fall, at one point indicating November.
It would be the second trial of Weinstein in New York involving charges of sex crimes. His 2020 conviction was overturned in April after the highest court in the state found that the presiding judge had erred by allowing prosecutors to call several accusers as witnesses, even though their allegations had not led to charges.
Shortly after, Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, said his office would retry Weinstein even as the appeals court’s ruling limited prosecutors’ ability to use some of the evidence from the first trial.
“We look forward to having a new day in court, and the Court of Appeals decision not being the last word or chapter on this,” Bragg said.
Weinstein is being held at the Rikers Island jail complex while he awaits a new trial in New York. Last year, in a separate case in California, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for committing sex crimes in Los Angeles County.
At the height of his career in Hollywood, Weinstein was lauded as a producer who could make careers. However, according to his accusers, he also wielded that power to harass and sexually assault women, many of whom were young and trying to make it in the industry.
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