FILE - Harvey Weinstein appears in Manhattan Criminal Court, May 29, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, Pool, File)
NEW YORK (AP) – Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren’t part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment had been sealed.
Prosecutors have previously said the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged incidents dating back to the mid-2000s.
In April, New York’s highest court overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. That court ordered a new trial, and it is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The 72-year-old has maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story is below.
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Harvey Weinstein was expected to be arraigned Wednesday to face a new indictment with additional charges as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
The jailed ex-movie mogul, who recently had emergency surgery, arrived at a Manhattan court in a wheelchair. Details of the new allegations were not immediately available.
Weinstein, 72, has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren’t part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults – two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it’s not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state’s highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, and it is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge’s term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they’ll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein’s lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
He has been at a Manhattan hospital following emergency surgery Sept. 9 to drain fluid around his heart and lungs.
A judge agreed last week to let Weinstein remain indefinitely in the prison ward at Bellevue Hospital instead of being transferred back to the infirmary ward at New York’s Rikers Island jail complex.
Once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, Weinstein co-founded the film and television production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Company and produced films such as “Shakespeare in Love” and “The Crying Game.”
