Harvey Weinstein: Here’s What’s Next for His Los Angeles Sexual Assault Case
It’s been nearly nine months since the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office charged Harvey Weinstein with rape and sexual assault, formally launching a criminal case in the heart of the former indie mogul’s dominion.
Since those first charges were filed in L.A., Weinstein has been convicted by of third-degree rape and a first-degree criminal sexual act and is now serving out a 23-year prison sentence in New York, which means he’ll have to be extradited to L.A. before that criminal case can move forward.
Here’s where things stand now:
Last Friday, the District Attorney for Los Angeles charged Weinstein with six additional sexual assault counts based on new accusations that Weinstein raped a woman at a Beverly Hills hotel between September 2004 and 2005, and another woman, twice, in November 2009 and November 2010 at a Beverly Hills hotel.
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Paired with the earlier charges from April and January, Weinstein now faces a total of 11 felony counts: four counts of forcible rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery by restraint and one count of sexual penetration by use of force. If convicted, Weinstein faces up to 140 years to life in prison in California.
Weinstein was originally scheduled to have an extradition hearing in August, but the hearing was delayed until Dec. 11 due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic. At the December hearing, should it take place as scheduled, a judge in Erie County — the county where Weinstein is incarcerated — will ask Weinstein if he agrees to be extradited to Los Angeles. If he agrees, then he will be brought over to L.A. to move forward with the criminal proceedings.
If Weinstein says he does not agree to go back to L.A., then a second hearing will need to be scheduled. At the hearing, according to Erie County District Attorney John Flynn, Weinstein will have to “prove one of three things.”
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“One, that he is not the same person that was brought the charge in L.A. County. … Two, that he can contest that it wasn’t an actual crime that he’s being charged with in L.A. County. … Or the third contention he could’ve made is that the paperwork is wrong, that the paperwork that L.A. County sent out here, there’s a problem with it in some degree,” Flynn told reporters last August when discussing the extradition hearing delay. “Those are really the only three grounds that anyone has to contest going back to wherever.”
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