Harvey Weinstein was charged Monday with a sex crime against a third woman, as New York prosecutors continue building cases against the former Hollywood studio boss whose downfall ushered in the #MeToo movement.
Manhattan's district attorney announced the charges in an updated indictment, saying Weinstein performed a forcible sex act on the woman in 2006.
"A Manhattan grand jury has now indicted Harvey Weinstein on some of the most serious sexual offenses that exist under New York's penal law," District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said in a statement. "Our investigation continues. If you are a survivor of the predatory abuse with which Mr. Weinstein is charged, there is still time to pursue justice."
Vance said Weinstein was charged with another count of criminal sexual act and two counts of predatory sexual assault. The latter carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The district attorney's representatives did not identify the accuser in the updated charges.
Weinstein is scheduled for arraignment on the new charges July 9. A lawyer for Weinstein said the 66-year-old former movie mogul will plead not guilty.
"Mr. Weinstein maintains that all of these allegations are false and he expects to be fully vindicated," lawyer Ben Brafman said.
A grand jury previously indicted Weinstein on charges involving two women. One of the alleged victims in the criminal case, who has not been identified publicly, told investigators that Weinstein cornered her in a hotel room and raped her in 2013. The other accuser, former actress Lucia Evans, has gone public with her account of Weinstein forcing her to perform oral sex at his office in 2004.
The Associated Press does not identify alleged victims of sexual assaults unless they come forward publicly.
More than 75 women have accused Weinstein of wrongdoing. Several actresses and models accused him of criminal sexual assaults, including film actress Rose McGowan, who said Weinstein raped her in 1997 in Utah, "Sopranos" actress Annabella Sciorra, who said he raped her in her New York apartment in 1992, and the Norwegian actress Natassia Malthe, who said he attacked her in a London hotel room in 2008.
The New York Times and The New Yorker jointly won a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on Weinstein, which toppled a once untouchable star maker and helped prod women in other industries from technology to academia to factory work to tell their stories of sexual harassment by powerful men.
New York City police detectives said in early November that they were investigating allegations by another Weinstein accuser, "Boardwalk Empire" actress Paz de la Huerta, who told police in October that he raped her twice in 2010.
Weinstein has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex, with his attorney challenging the credibility of his alleged victims.
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More