Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein has been charged in a new indictment that remains under seal, prosecutors said Thursday.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office announced the new indictment at a court hearing Thursday, but did not announce the charges as Weinstein did not attend. He was rushed to hospital from Rikers Island on Sunday and underwent emergency heart surgery on Monday.
Weinstein’s attorney, Arthur Aidala, said he was still in a fragile condition. The “Pulp Fiction” producer, 72, is expected to return to court on Sept. 18. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Curtis Farber signed an order allowing Weinstein to remain at Bellevue Hospital at least until then.
“His heart condition and fluid around his heart and lungs were at the point where if there had not been emergency surgery, he would have expired,” Aidala told the Daily News after the hearing.
“He has a shunt in his chest that allows fluid, water and blood, to drain out of his body into a bag, and until that ceases, they’re going to keep that shunt in him.”
The New York Court of Appeals in April overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction for raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013 and sexually assaulting Miriam Haley, a former production assistant, in 2006, finding the trial court judge wrongly allowed testimony from three women about uncharged instances of sexual misconduct.
Manhattan prosecutors are slated to retry the 2020 case in November. The indictment announced Thursday may be tried separately.
The News last week reported that prosecutors were scrutinizing a set of sexual assaults alleged against Weinstein by three women that were not included in his first trial, involving incidents in 2016 and 2005 or 2006. It’s not clear whether those allegations are contained in the new indictment.
After he was found guilty in New York, Weinstein faced a separate trial in Los Angeles, leading to his second conviction in December 2022 on rape charges and a 16-year sentence. He is appealing in that case and is expected to return to California to serve out that sentence when his New York matters are resolved.
Weinstein’s precipitous fall from grace came in late 2017 following bombshell exposés in The New Yorker and The New York Times alleging he’d raped, sexually abused, and mentally tormented scores of young women throughout his career, supercharging the global #MeToo movement against workplace sexual harassment.
Weinstein denies all allegations.
This developing story will be updated.
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