Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has been indicted on new charges by a Manhattan grand jury ahead of his highly anticipated second sex crimes trial in the city, prosecutors said Thursday.
“The Grand Jury has indicted Mr. Weinstein,” said Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg in a morning court hearing.
“We have not unsealed the actual indictment so we won’t speak about the specifics.”
The new indictment will add charges to Weinstein’s pending sex crimes trial – a proceeding that follows his original conviction and 23-year sentence being overturned in April.
It also follows Weinstein’s recent health scare, in which he was rushed to Bellevue Hospital.
Weinstein’s attorney, Arthur Aidala, said Weinstein “almost died’ in his latest health scare which required open-heart surgery.
“He has sort of a shunt in his chest which is attached to a bag which is draining fluids from his body,” Aidala said.
The next date is Sept. 18 for a medical update on Weinstein’s health.
The second trial was expected to unfold in November, but Judge Curtis Farber wondered aloud Thursday whether it was “premature” to think that it could still happen then, given Weinstein’s health problems.
Aidala argued the new indictment should be “separate” from the previous indictments on which prosecutors planned to retry Weinstein.
“We will be ready for trial with our new survivors on November 12,” Blumberg shot back.
