Harvey Weinstein to be extradited to Los Angeles to face further sexual assault charges
By Lauren del Valle and Eric Levenson, CNN
A New York judge on Tuesday approved Harvey Weinstein’s extradition to Los Angeles County so that the imprisoned former movie producer can face further sexual assault charges.
Erie County Court Judge Kenneth Case denied Weinstein’s attorney’s motion to further delay the extradition. Local prosecutors told the court that the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office plans to transport Weinstein in late June at the earliest, but most likely in early July.
Weinstein’s attorney Norman Effman said he plans to appeal Judge Case’s order and ask an appellate division in New York to stay the proceedings.
Weinstein, the disgraced movie producer, was found guilty last year in New York of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape. He is serving a 23-year prison sentence at a maximum security prison outside of Buffalo, according to state records.
The 69-year-old is in declining health and his attorneys have decried the lengthy sentence as a de facto life sentence. His legal team filed an appeal earlier this year, saying a biased judge and a biased juror tainted the trial.
Weinstein is also charged with 11 counts of sexual assault in Los Angeles County involving five women. The charges include four counts of forcible rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery by restraint, and one count of sexual penetration by use of force. The alleged assaults took place between 2004 and 2013.
He was originally charged in Los Angeles County in January 2020 with sexually assaulting two women in separate incidents over a two-day period in 2013. In April, prosecutors added an additional charge that stems from an alleged incident at a Beverly Hills hotel in May 2010, and in October prosecutors added six new charges.
He has denied the allegations, according to his spokesman Juda Engelmayer.
“Harvey Weinstein has always maintained that every one of his physical encounters throughout his entire life have been consensual. That hasn’t changed,” Engelmayer said.
The court hearing comes more than three years after investigative stories by The New York Times and The New Yorker revealed Weinstein’s alleged history of sexual abuse, harassment and secret settlements as he used his influence as a Hollywood power broker to take advantage of young women.
The revelations led to a wave of women speaking publicly about the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and harassment in what’s known as the #MeToo movement.
