Harvey Weinstein to Face Charges in UK

Harvey Weinstein will soon face new criminal charges in the U.K. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced on Wednesday that Weinstein has been charged with two counts of indecent assault on a woman in London in August of 1996. The charges stem from evidence obtained by the Metropolitan Police and were recently reviewed by CPS.

Weinstein was one of the most notorious cases in the “Me Too” movement of 2017, and has now been accused of sexual assault or sexual harassment by dozens of women. He is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence in a Los Angeles facility while waiting for another trial in the U.S. to begin. Deadline reported on this new international angle on his legal struggles on Wednesday. It said that CPS is “reminding all concerned that criminal proceedings against the defendant are active and that he has the right to a fair trial.”

Part of the reason Weinstein’s allegations became such big news in 2017 was because many of them fell outside of the statute of limitations, meaning that he couldn’t be prosecuted for them anymore. This led to a lot of frustration in the public eye, but in May of 2018 Weinstein was arrested in New York City and charged by the district attorney’s office there.

Weinstein pleaded not guilty to charges of “rape, criminal sex act, sex abuse and sexual misconduct for incidents involving two separate women” in the New York case. In February of 2020, a jury found him guilty of one count of criminal sexual assault in the first degree and one count of rap in the third degree. He began his prison sentence on Rikers Island but was extradited to California in June of 2021 to face more charges there.

Weinstein was denied an appeal in his New York case just last week, meaning he must finish his 23-year sentence for those convictions at the very least. The Los Angeles charges could add even more time to his total sentence, and it’s not clear what kind of punitive measures the British courts will request. Meanwhile, Weinstein’s attorneys have repeatedly emphasized his age – 70 years old – and his health struggles in their attempts to secure an appeal.

Weinstein remains imprisoned at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles, California. There is no word yet on when his L.A. case might move forward, let alone his case in the U.K.