Harvey Weinstein Charged With Additional Sexual Assault Count

Gene Maddaus
·3 min read

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Los Angeles prosecutors on Friday filed a new charge against Harvey Weinstein, stemming from an alleged assault at a Beverly Hills hotel room in 2010.

Weinstein is already awaiting extradition to Los Angeles to face four other charges, stemming from two incidents in hotels in February 2013. The former producer is serving a 23-year sentence in a prison near Buffalo, N.Y., for rape and sexual assault.

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In the new case, Weinstein is accused of “sexual battery by restraint” against a woman at a hotel room on May 11, 2010. The woman was first interviewed by detectives in October 2019, and was later able to provide evidence that showed the incident happened within the statute of limitations.

Prosecutors were facing a deadline to file the charge, as the 10-year statute was set to expire next month. The new charge carries a potential sentence of four years in prison, meaning that Weinstein is now facing a theoretical maximum of 29 years on the Los Angeles charges.

The D.A.’s office was investigating two other allegations against Weinstein, but declined to file those charges because the alleged victims did not want to testify.

The D.A.’s office did not identify any of the women in the three cases. However, a description of one of the women who declined to testify matches Jessica Mann, the hairdresser and onetime aspiring actress who testified against Weinstein in his New York trial.

Weinstein was convicted in February of raping Mann at a DoubleTree Hotel in Manhattan in 2013. In her testimony, Mann said Weinstein had also raped her at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills about a year later.

“In February of this year, the victim testified in trial in New York accusing the suspect of criminal sexual misconduct in 2013; the defendant was convicted of sexually assaulting the victim there,” prosecutors said in a memo explaining the decision not to pursue the charges. “On March 31, 2020, she said she does not want to participate in additional testimony in Los Angeles due to the risk that it will re-traumatize her. The alleged sexual assaults in Los Angeles cannot be proven without the victim’s testimony.”

Mann broke down in tears repeatedly over the course of three days of testimony and cross-examination in New York.

In the other case that the prosecutors declined to file, an actress had alleged that Weinstein sexually assaulted her during a business meeting sometime between 2004 and 2006. The woman repeatedly told detectives that she would not testify, according to a prosecution memo.

In total, Los Angeles prosecutors reviewed eight allegations against Weinstein, and brought charges in three of them. In January, District Attorney Jackie Lacey filed four charges of rape, forcible oral copulation, penetration by force and sexual assault by restraint.

One of the charges pertains to Lauren Young, who testified in New York that Weinstein had lured her into a hotel bathroom in 2013, and groped her while he masturbated. Three other charges pertain to an Italian actress and model, who has accused Weinstein of forcing his way into her hotel room and raping her. The incidents allegedly occurred within 48 hours of each other.

The D.A.’s office has filed a detainer with the prison system in New York, the first step towards obtaining his extradition. Weinstein is currently being held at the Wende Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Erie County, while he awaits a permanent assignment.

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