By Sammie Jones-
Disgraced Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein has appeared in court charged with rape, a criminal sex act, sex abuse and sexual misconduct for alleged incidents involving two separate women after he surrendered to authorities in New York.
The investigations into the alleged sex offences are ongoing, some of them dating back to the 80’s, in another shameful celebrity criminal case.
Weinstein’s lawyers agreed to post $1m (£750,000) bail, with the shamed actor wearing an electronic monitoring device. Weinstein also surrendered his passport and was instructed not to travel beyond New York and Connecticut.
“The defendant used his position, money and power to lure young women into situations where he was able to violate them sexually,” she said.
Two law enforcement officials told the Associated Press the case will include allegations by Lucia Evans, an aspiring actor who has said the Hollywood mogul forced her to perform oral sex on him in his office.
Evans had told the New Yorker in October 2017 that Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex during a daytime meeting at his New York office in 2004, the summer before her senior year at Middlebury College.
“I said, over and over, ‘I don’t want to do this, stop, don’t,’” 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.”
The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, had been under enormous public pressure to bring a criminal case against Weinstein. Some women’s groups, including the Hollywood activist group Time’s Up, accused Vance, a Democrat, of being too deferential to Weinstein and too dismissive of his accusers.
Among his accusers are Rose McGowan said Weinstein raped her in 1997 in Utah, the Sopranos actor Annabella Sciorra said Weinstein raped her in her New York apartment in 1992 and the Norwegian actor Natassia Malthe said Weinstein attacked her in a London hotel room in 2008.
Speaking outside court, Weinstein’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said his client intends to plead not guilty. He said Weinstein intended to move very quickly to dismiss the charges, calling them “constitutionally flawed” and “not factually supported”.
It is the first criminal case to be brought against Weinstein since the revelations about him erupted last October and sparked the #MeToo movement.
The 66-year-old was led in handcuffs to the criminal court in Manhattan. He denies all allegation but lacked the confidence to strongly express his innocence to reporters who threw questions to him as he was taken into court. Weinstein is also being investigated for sex crimes in Los Angeles and London. In a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, actress Rose McGowan said:
”I, and so many of Harvey Weinstein’s survivors had given up hope that our rapist would be held accountable by law. Twenty years ago, I swore that I would right this wrong. Today we are one step closer to justice,” actress Rose McGowan, one of the first women to publicly accuse Weinstein of assault, said Thursday.
“We were young women who were assaulted by Weinstein and later terrorized by his vast network of complicity. I stand with my fellow survivors. May this give hope to all victims and survivors everywhere that are telling their truths.”
Actress Ashley Judd is suing the Hollywood producer, for allegedly damaging her career after she rejected his sexual advances.
One of the cases was in New York, where Italian model Ambra Battilana accused Mr Weinstein of groping her in 2015.
The allegations against him are believed to have been inspired by the # Me too movement, triggered by actress Alyssa Milano on Twitter. She received half a million responses after urging those who had been sexually harassed or assaulted to reply “Me Too”.
The positive responses led to over 300 actresses, writers and directors launching the Time’s Up project, raising $21m in just a month to fund legal assistance for people who had suffered harassment or sexual abuse,
A statement from the New York police department said: “The NYPD thanks these brave survivors for their courage to come forward and seek justice.”
Weinstein surrendered at the first precinct in Tribeca, where the Weinstein Company has its headquarters and where many of the alleged offences are said to have taken place, either at the offices or a nearby hotel.