Harvey Weinstein pleaded not responsible in a Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday to 4 counts of rape and 7 different sexual assault counts.
Sheriff’s deputies introduced the 69-year-old convicted rapist into court docket in a wheelchair. He was sporting a brown jail jumpsuit and face masks. Lawyer Mark Werksman entered the plea for the disgraced film mogul a day after Weinstein was extradited to California from New York, the place he was serving a 23-year jail time period.
Weinstein spoke solely to say “thanks” to Choose Sergio Tapia, who wished him good luck because the listening to ended.
He now awaits a second trial on a second coast, and the potential of one other prolonged sentence.
Weinstein’s expenses contain 5 girls and span from 2004 to 2013. Most are stated to have taken place within the lodges in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles that the New York-based Weinstein would make his headquarters for Hollywood enterprise. Some passed off throughout Oscars week, when his movies have been perennial contenders earlier than the #MeToo motion introduced him down.
He pleaded not responsible to 4 counts of rape, 4 counts of forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery by restraint and one rely of sexual penetration by use of power, expenses that collectively may carry a sentence of 140 years.
The ladies weren’t named within the charging paperwork.
A New York jury discovered Weinstein responsible of raping an aspiring actor in 2013 in a Manhattan resort room and forcibly performing oral intercourse on a TV and movie manufacturing assistant in 2006 at his Manhattan condo.
Harvey Weinstein has been sentenced to 23 years in jail following his conviction final month for rape and sexual assault. 1:41
Weinstein is interesting that conviction, searching for a brand new trial. He maintains his innocence and contends that any sexual exercise was consensual.
Los Angeles prosecutors first charged Weinstein in January 2020, simply as jury choice was getting underway within the New York Metropolis case.
Extra expenses have been added later within the yr, and in March, he was indicted by an LA County grand jury.
The pandemic and procedural delays meant that Weinstein’s extradition took properly over a yr. His attorneys cited his declining well being as they sought to maintain him at a state jail close to Buffalo, N.Y., till jury choice started within the Los Angeles trial.
Weinstein’s time in custody in California will rely towards his New York sentence, officers stated.
As soon as a significant energy in Hollywood alongside together with his brother Bob and their film firms Miramax and The Weinstein Co., Harvey Weinstein was marked because the archvillain of the #MeToo motion beginning late in 2017, when girls’s accounts have been revealed within the New York Occasions and the New Yorker. He was arrested in New York seven months later.
Rumours about Weinstein’s behaviour swirled in movie business circles for many years, however he silenced many accusers with payoffs, nondisclosure agreements and the concern that he may crush their careers.
The Los Angeles expenses got here from a activity power established to deal with sexual misconduct in Hollywood as #MeToo gained momentum.
Weinstein and porn performer Ron Jeremy are among the many few charged by the staff, which declined to prosecute greater than 20 well-known males as a result of the allegations in opposition to them have been too previous or couldn’t be corroborated.
