Harvey Weinstein Charged with Six Counts of Sexual Assault in L.A.

Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced former Hollywood executive, has been charged with six more counts of sexual assault in Los Angeles, the New York Times reports. In March, he was sentenced to 23 years in prison for numerous sex crimes he had committed over many decades.

These new charges relate to incidents that occurred over a decade ago, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney, Jackie Lacey. This follows Weinstein being found guilty in February of two sexual assault-related felonies in New York, being charged in April for a 2010 incident in Los Angeles, and in January for allegedly assaulting two women in Los Angeles.

For many decades as one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood, he sexually assaulted dozens of actresses and other women in the industry, often threatening to end their careers if they ever spoke out. In October 2017, women whom he had sexually assaulted began to speak out, which then triggered a tsunami of sexual assault and harassment allegations against him and hundreds of other men in the industry in what came to be known as the #MeToo movement.

The six charges stem to instances throughout the 2000s up through 2010 when he allegedly raped multiple women at a hotel in Beverly Hills. Weinstein, according to the New York Times piece, is facing “a total of four counts each of forcible rape and forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery by restraint and one count of sexual penetration by use of force, involving five victims for crimes dating from 2004 to 2013.”

Currently, Weinstein is held at a prison in Western New York State. An extradition hearing is set to happen on December 11 in Buffalo, NY, with prosecutors saying that they want him extradited to California to try him for the six charges.

You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.