Harvey Weinstein, 67, hobbles into court with the help of an aide for hearing on sexual assault trial
- Weinstein arrived at court in Manhattan on Friday looking frailer than in the past
- The 67-year-old is due to stand trial in January on five sexual assault charges
- He denies them all and has repeatedly tried to have the case thrown out
Harvey Weinstein was helped into court in Manhattan on Friday for a hearing on his sexual assault case.
The 67-year-old looked frailer than at his last appearance, clinging on to one of his aides as he made his way into the courthouse while another carried a cane.
Friday’s hearing is to determine bail hearings again before state law changes in January.
Weinstein will go to trial in New York in January on five counts; first degree rape, third degree rape, criminal sexual act and two counts of predatory sexual assault.
The charges relate to two incidents involving two women; one who says she was raped by him in March 2013 and one who says he forced her into performing oral sex on him in 2006.
He has repeatedly tried to have the case against him thrown out.
Harvey Weinstein was helped by an aide into court on Friday as he arrived for a hearing on his sex crimes trial
Weinstein walked with the help of an aide and another carried a walking stick as he arrived in court
Weinstein on Friday (left) and in May last year, when he was originally charged
Weinstein was originally charged in May 2018 over two alleged incidents; the 2013 ‘rape’ and a 2004 incident involving Lucia Evans who said he had forced her to perform oral sex on him.
The third incident, which he remains charged over, was first revealed in a second indictment in August 2018.
The charge relating to Evans’ allegation was dropped in October 2018, however, after his lawyer’s proved that one of the detectives leading the case had failed to tell prosecutors that a witness doubted her account.
The two indictments have now been consolidated into one and he will face trial over the alleged rape in 2013 and alleged oral sex in 2006.
He has always vehemently denied any allegation that he forced anyone into oral sex. The charges resulted from an avalanche of allegations which began in October 2017.
Actress Annabella Sciorra will testify in court that he raped her too.
She claimed in an interview with The New Yorker that Weinstein fought his way into her apartment and raped her in 1993 or 1994.
They had been at a dinner when, she claims, he forced his way into the apartment after dropping her off in a car.
She alleged: ‘He shoved me onto the bed, and he got on top of me. I kicked and yelled.’
She claimed he ejaculated on her nightgown, which was a family heirloom from Italy, and said: ‘I have impeccable timing.’
Sciorra said struggled for years with whether or not to speak out. When she was first contacted by Ronan Farrow in March 2017 – before the scandal broke – she denied it.
She then made the rape allegation in an interview in October that year, after a handful of women had also spoken out about him.