Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty in Los Angeles court to sex assaults
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty in a Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday to four counts of rape and seven other sexual assault counts.
Sheriff's deputies brought the 69-year-old convicted rapist into court in a wheelchair. He was wearing a brown jail jumpsuit and face mask. Attorney Mark Werksman entered the plea for the disgraced movie mogul a day after Weinstein was extradited to California from New York, where he has been serving a 23-year prison term.
Weinstein spoke only to say "thank you" to Judge Sergio Tapia, who wished him good luck as the hearing ended.
He now awaits a second trial on a second coast, and the possibility of another lengthy sentence.
The latest charges against Weinstein involve five women and span from 2004 to 2013. Most are said to have taken place in the hotels in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles that the New York-based Weinstein would make his headquarters for Hollywood business. Some took place during Oscars week, when his films were perennial contenders before reports of his misconduct helped spark the #MeToo movement.
Weinstein pleaded not guilty to four counts of rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery by restraint and one count of sexual penetration by use of force, charges that together could bring a sentence of 140 years. A grand jury indicted him on the counts March 15, and the indictment was unsealed Wednesday, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón.
"Anyone who abuses their power and influence to prey upon others will be brought to justice," Gascón said in a statement.
The women were not named in the charging documents.
"It just takes so much courage for them to testify," attorney Gloria Allred, who represents two of the women, told CBS Los Angeles. "There's no financial benefit to them to do that, they're just doing that for the cause of justice."
A New York jury in February 2020 found Weinstein guilty of raping an aspiring actress in 2013 in a Manhattan hotel room and forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 at his Manhattan apartment.
He is appealing that conviction and seeking a new trial. Weinstein maintains his innocence and contends that any sexual activity was consensual.
Los Angeles prosecutors first charged Weinstein in January 2020, just as jury selection was getting underway in the New York City case. More charges were added later in the year.
The pandemic and procedural delays meant that Weinstein's extradition took well over a year. His attorneys cited his declining health as they sought to keep him at a state prison near Buffalo, New York, until jury selection began in the Los Angeles trial.
Weinstein's time in custody in California will count toward his New York sentence, officials said.
Once a major power in Hollywood along with his brother Bob and their movie companies Miramax and The Weinstein Co., Harvey Weinstein would be marked as the archvillain of the #MeToo movement starting late in 2017, when women's accounts were published in the New York Times and the New Yorker. He would be arrested in New York seven months later.
Rumors about Weinstein's behavior swirled in film industry circles for decades, but he silenced many accusers with payoffs, nondisclosure agreements and the fear that he could crush their careers.