Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein has pleaded not guilty to yet another sexual harassment crime he has been accused of.
Weinstein, once one of the most influential people in the movie industry, producing “The English Patient,” “Shakespeare in Love” and “The King’s Speech”, fell from grace several years ago, when many women (over 80!) came forward with accusations of sexual crimes he committed against them.
Now, the 72-year-old has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a hotel in Manhattan in 2006.
“Not guilty,” Weinstein said emphatically when asked for his plea on Wednesday. He looked a shell of the man he once was: in a wheelchair, and a largely bandaged right hand. He is recovering from emergency heart surgery, and is on 19 different medications.
It was Weinstein’s criminal acts which started the “#Metoo” movement, changing the social atmosphere and dynamic significantly around the world.
In the New York penal code, a criminal sexual act in the first degree concerns engaging in “oral sexual conduct or anal sexual conduct with another person” by “forcible compulsion.” It is a class B felony.
In April of this year, New York’s state Court of Appeals overturned Weinstein’s 23-year prison sentence, on the basis that the trial allowed women to testify about allegations that were not part of the charges.
“The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial,” the court wrote.
Weinstein’s retrial is tentatively scheduled to begin November 12th.
He is still in custody at the Rikers Island prison complex, though he spent a spell at Bellevue Hospital for surgery.
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