Photo: Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images
Harvey Weinstein was indicted again, prosecutors said in Manhattan Supreme Court on September 12, months after New York’s highest court threw out his landmark rape conviction. “The grand jury has indicted Mr. Weinstein,” prosecutor Nicole Blumberg said in court. “We have not unsealed the actual indictment, so we will not announce the specifics of the charge.”
“He has been indicted,” Blumberg continued. “We would obviously request a date for when Mr. Weinstein is able to be present to be arraigned on the new indictment.” The prosecution will file paperwork to combine the new and old indictments as well as provide Weinstein’s defense evidence relating to all the accusers. Weinstein, who had a cardiac emergency earlier in the week, was not in court this morning as he did not receive medical clearance to travel from the hospital, proceedings revealed.
That Weinstein was indicted comes as no surprise.
Prosecutors previously vowed to pursue charges against him a second time. “We believe in this case and will be retrying this case,” Blumberg said in Manhattan Supreme Court during the May 1 proceedings. At the time, Blumberg told the court that one of the women Weinstein was convicted of attacking was at the proceeding. Her presence signified still more that the prosecution wanted to pursue the case. “Jessica Mann is here in court. She’s one of the sexual-assault survivors, and she’s here today to show that she’s not backing down,” Blumberg stated. “She wanted everyone to know the truth and that the defendant may have power and privilege, but she has the truth.” The judge overseeing Weinstein’s case, Curtis Farber, said the trial would be tentatively scheduled for this fall.
Weinstein was found guilty on February 24, 2020, of rape in the third degree and criminal sexual act in the first degree for abusing two women, Mann and Mimi Haleyi. Weinstein was found not guilty of two predatory sexual-assault counts, which involved actress Annabella Sciorra’s claim that he raped her in late 1993. (As Weinstein was acquitted of these counts, he cannot be retried for them.) The appeals court overturned the case due to prosecutors calling three other accusers — Dawn Dunning, Tarale Wulff, and Lauren Young — to take the stand regarding Weinstein’s sexual misconduct, allegations for which he was not charged.
Weinstein fought his conviction, and the court sided with him, saying in its ruling, “The only evidence against defendant was the complainants’ testimony, and the result of the court’s rulings, on the one hand, was to bolster their credibility and diminish defendant’s character before the jury. On the other hand, the threat of a cross-examination highlighting these untested allegations undermined the defendant’s right to testify.”