Los Angeles County prosecutors on Friday charged disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein with six additional sexual assault counts involving two more alleged victims.
Weinstein, already serving time in a New York prison following his conviction in that state, now stands accused of raping and sexually assaulting five women in L.A. County from 2004 to 2013.
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Prosecutors added three felony counts each of forcible rape and forcible oral copulation. Weinstein now faces four counts each of forcible rape and forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery by restraint and one count of sexual penetration by use of force, involving five women for alleged crimes from 2004 to 2013.
“I am thankful to the first women who reported these crimes and whose courage have given strength to others to come forward,” Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a statement. “The willingness of these latest victims to testify against a powerful man gives us the additional evidence we need to build a compelling criminal case.”
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The new charges include an incident that took place between September 2004 and September 2005 in which Weinstein allegedly raped a woman at a hotel in Beverly Hills. He is also is accused of raping another woman on two separate occasions in November 2009 and November 2010 at a hotel in Beverly Hills.
Weinstein was originally charged in L.A. County in January with sexually assaulting two women during separate incidents in 2013. The complaint was amended in April to add a charge that the defendant allegedly sexually assaulted a woman at a Beverly Hills hotel in May 2010.
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Charges filed against Weinstein on Jan. 6 in Los Angeles stemmed from alleged encounters at hotels in L.A. and Beverly Hills in February 2013. An Italian model, who gave an extensive interview to The Times in 2017, said Weinstein forced himself on her in the Mr. C Beverly Hills hotel after they met at the Los Angeles Italia Film, Fashion and Art Fest.
The woman said that she showed Weinstein pictures of her children and begged him to stop during the alleged attack.
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“He grabbed me by the hair and forced me to do something I did not want to do,” she said.
Days later, prosecutors allege, Weinstein invited a woman to his room at a West Los Angeles hotel after a business meeting in the hotel’s restaurant and then trapped her in a bathroom, where he groped her while masturbating.
The woman, Lauren Young, later testified about the allegation at Weinstein’s criminal trial in New York City. While on the stand, Young said the attack took place at the Montage Hotel and noted another woman was present and aided Weinstein by closing the door to the bathroom and leaving her alone with the mogul.
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Prosecutors have not said if that person will be charged. The criminal complaint against Weinstein, however, noted that an “accomplice” aided him in restraining the victim in both the May 2010 assault and the attack described by Young. Greg Risling, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said the reference to an accomplice in connection with the May 2010 attack was “typical charging language” that did not “reflect the facts of the case.”
The Los Angeles Times does not publish the names of alleged victims in sexual assault cases unless they come forward publicly.
Weinstein, 68, was sentenced to 23 years in prison in March after being found guilty of rape and committing a criminal sexual act in New York.
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