Harvey Weinstein to turn himself in to face criminal charges
The producer has been accused of sexual assault.
Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein will turn himself into New York City police Friday to face criminal charges brought by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, sources familiar with the case told ABC News.
Weinstein has been under criminal investigation in connection with the allegations of two women, Lucia Evans and actress Paz de la Huerta.
It’s not clear what charges Weinstein will face but Evans told The New Yorker Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him in 2004 while de la Huerta told Vanity Fair he raped her in 2010.
Both accusations are within the statute of limitations in New York given the nature of the alleged crimes.
Weinstein’s case was recently presented to a grand jury by prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which declined to comment. Weinstein’s defense attorney Benjamin Brafman also declined to comment, as did the NYPD.
Since last October, when The New York Times and The New Yorker published the first allegations of sexual harassment and assault made against Weinstein, dozens of women have come forward to accuse the 66-year-old producer of sexual misconduct. On Wednesday, a source told ABC News that federal prosecutors in Manhattan were investigating the allegations of sexual abuse, joining the ranks of the New York Police Department, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the New York Attorney General’s Office, the Los Angeles Police Department and U.K. authorities that had all previously acknowledged investigations of their own.
In light of the claims, Weinstein, who has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex, was almost immediately terminated by his production company and was expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His wife of more than a decade, Georgina Chapman, also left him. The former couple have two children together; their divorce is pending.