Hollywood mogulHarvey Weinsteinsurrendered to authorities early Friday morning at a police precinct in New York wherehe was arrested and chargedwith allegedly raping a woman and forcing another to perform oral sex, police sources confirm to PEOPLE.
The 66-year-old former head of Miramax and The Weinstein Company faces charges of first-degree rape and third-degree rape in one case, and with first-degree criminal sex act in another, the sources confirm.
He is charged with criminal sex act in the first-degree in connection with an alleged 2004 sexual assault on aspiring actress Lucia Evans, the sources confirm. (Evans has agreed to be publicly named.)
The arrest of the fallen movie executive comes after a 7-month investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him – and just weeks after a special grand jury was convened to hear the evidence against him,theNew York Daily Newsreports.
It’s unclear if Weinstein will face additional charges in connection with other allegations of sexual misconduct.
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After turning himself in at the First Precinct in Tribeca, he was fingerprinted and booked, police sources say.
Handcuffed, he was taken to Manhattan Criminal Court, where lead prosecutor Joan Illuzzi read the charges against him, theTimesreports.
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Months of investigation, she said, have “shown that this defendant used his money, power, and position to lure young women into situations where he was able to violate them sexually,”The New York Timesreports.
Weinstein was not required to enter a plea at Friday’s hearing. He paid $1 million in a cashier’s check to post bail on a $10 million bond,CNN reports. He handed over his passport and his travel is now limited. He will also wear a monitoring bracelet.
Weinstein will plead not guilty if he is indicted, his lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said after the hearing, theTimesreports.
Calling the charges against Weinstein “factually unsubstantiated,” Brafman also said he predicted that a jury would not believe the women who have made these allegations against his client, according to theTimes.
“My job is not to defend behavior — my job is to defend criminal behavior,” Brafman told the dozens of reporters waiting outside the courthouse after the hearing. “Mr. Weinstein did not create the casting couch in Hollywood.”
Brafman, did not immediately return calls for comment.
But he has said in the past that “Mr. Weinstein has always maintained that he has never engaged in nonconsensual sexual acts.”
Weinstein’s arrest ends months of speculation as to whether the producer would be criminally charged after more than 80 women have accused him of sexual assault or harassment.
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Many of the women came forward in — and following — the publication of bombshell,Pulitzer Prize-winning articlesinTheNew YorkerandTheNew York Timesin October documenting Weinstein’sdecades of alleged sexual misconduct and sexual assaults.
Actresses includingAshley Juddtold theNew York Timeshow Weinstein allegedly sexually harassed her during a 1997 hotel meeting.
Other actresses including Asia Argento,Rose McGowan— and Evans opened up toRonan Farrow ofThe New Yorkerwith their stories of Weinstein’s alleged sexual assaults and harassment against them.
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Charges Against Evans Stem From 2004 Encounter
Evans was an aspiring actress and a college senior when she met Weinstein at a nightclub in 2004, she told theThe New Yorker. When he invited her to his office at Miramax for a meeting, he allegedly forced her to perform oral sex on him, she told the magazine.
“I tried to get away, but maybe I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t want to kick him or fight him,” she toldThe New Yorker. “He’s a big guy. He overpowered me.”
For years afterward, she said she blamed herself for not allegedly stopping him, even developing an eating disorder, she toldThe New Yorker.
Word of Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct caught the attention of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in 2015 when it investigated Weinstein about alleged sexual abuse, theNew York Timesreported. But district attorney Cyrus Vance declined to press charges, saying that he did not believe prosecutors could have won the case.
But in October 2017, the NYPD launched a criminal investigation intoWeinsteinstemming from Evans’ assault allegation 13 years before, interviewing her about the details of the alleged attack.
While the woman in the rape case has not been identified, Evans agreed to be named in the criminal proceedings.
Weinstein’s legal woes are far from over. The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New Yorkhas launched a criminal probeinvestigating in part whether he enticed or persuaded any women to cross state lines with the intent of committing a sex crime — a potentially federal offense, according toThe Wall Street Journal, which was first to report the news.
Brafman has previously confirmed to PEOPLE that he has met with federal prosecutors in the SDNY “in an attempt to dissuade them from proceeding” and will continue to meet with them moving forward.
source: people.com
