Harvey Weinstein, the American producer, pleaded not guilty once again to 11 charges of sexual assault and rape in a Los Angeles Court and also filed a motion to dismiss the entire case, NBC News reported.
The prosecution had filed a motion under seal on Monday seeking the court’s permission to allow testimony at the trial from several accusers in support of the five women whose claims form the basis of the 11 charges.
Claiming that the District Attorney’s office is “opening up a water cannon of allegations” against Weinstein through numerous uncharged alleged victims, the producer’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss the entire case arguing that the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence and relied on faulty testimony.
Weinstein’s attorney also mentioned in the court that Weinstein being held at the Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles despite “obviously struggling” due to his health problems is “akin to solitary confinement.”
Brought in a wheelchair to the court, Weinstein gave his agreement to waive the trial deadline. The next date for the hearing has been set for December 8.
Since October 2017, more than 80 women have accused the 69-year-old producer of sexual misconduct, following which he was dismissed from Miramax, the production company he had co-founded with his brother Bob Weinstein, and expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science.
In February 2020, Weinstein was convicted of rape and sexual assault in New York. Following a trial in the Manhattan Supreme Court, he was sentenced to 23 years of imprisonment for mainly two cases: a first-degree criminal sexual act when he forcibly performed oral sex on a production assistant in 2006, and the other for committing third-degree rape in 2013.
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Weinstein’s conviction was a shot in the arm for the #MeToo movement that witnessed women across the globe coming out with allegations of sexual misconduct and assault at the workplace against powerful men.
While serving his jail term in New York, Weinstein was charged with several cases in California in 2020 for crimes in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills from 2004 to 2013, and was formally indicted on April 11, 2021. He was extradited to Los Angeles in June to face trial on 11 charges, involving five unnamed women.
Following his indictment, on August 12, the Los Angeles court dismissed one of the West Coast charges against Weinstein. But, on August 20, District Attorney George Gascón’s office came back with a new grand jury who revived the dismissed sexual assault charge.