Additional charge against disgraced producer will be unsealed at Sept. 18 arraignment, prosecutors say
Harvey Weinstein has been indicted on new sex crime charges, New York City prosecutors announced Thursday.
The grand jury indictment will remain sealed until the disgraced producer is formally arraigned on Sept. 18, at which point the exact charges, number of victims, and sexual abuse allegations will be revealed, the Associated Press reports.
Weinstein did not attend Thursday’s hearing, as he’s currently hospitalized after undergoing heart surgery earlier this week.
At a May hearing that followed the overturned conviction against Weinstein, prosecutors said that they may bring additional charges against him, with Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg telling the court that “some people who were not ready to speak out in 2020 now appear ready to do so.”
Those potential charges — reportedly stemming from allegations made by three additional victims, and not the two women who were the basis of the initial New York trial against Weinstein — were subsequently presented to a grand jury, who indicted Weinstein on the still-sealed charges.
According to CNN, a judge has yet to rule whether to combine the new charges with the planned retrial against Weinstein after his conviction on the first New York trial was overturned by a Court of Appeals; Weinstein remains behind bars due to his conviction on sex crime charges in Los Angeles.
However, as a result of Weinstein’s frequent health ordeals, the judge ruled Thursday that he can remain at Bellevue Hospital indefinitely instead of the Rikers Island jail complex, where he was previously housed following the overturned conviction and ahead of the retrial.