Harvey Weinstein is doing 23 years behind bars for rape in New York, and now the disgraced Oscar-winner is facing a new assault charge in California. In a statement, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office said that the incident allegedly occurred on May 11, 2010 at a Beverly Hills Hotel.
“We are continuing to build and strengthen our case,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a statement.
“As we gather corroborating evidence, we have reached out to other possible sexual assault victims. If we find new evidence of a previously unreported crime, as we did here, we will investigate and determine whether additional criminal charges should be filed.”
Prosecutors also disclosed that they declined to prosecute two other cases after victims said they didn’t want to testify. One of the accusers was Jessica Mann, who testified in the Manhattan trial and said he also raped her in California.
Weinstein was first charged in L.A. in January with one felony count of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by use of force and sexual battery by restraint for attacks on two women in separate 2013 incidents. The 68-year-old was accused of raping an Italian model at her room at Mr. C Beverly Hills hotel, then on the next evening, attacking Lauren Young inside his room at the Montage Beverly Hills hotel.
KEVIN SMITH
Meanwhile, Clerks director Kevin Smith tells Variety that Weinstein never paid him royalties for Clerks.
Smith explains that he sold Clerks to Weinstein and his company Miramax in 1994 in Sundance for $227,000, but that the film ended up grossing $3.2 million in North America alone, and became a cult hit.
He says he took seven years to pay Smith the royalties he owed him, and ended up billing him for a yacht he rented for Pulp Fiction.
He says: “I’m still out money. It took seven years for us to see any profit from that movie. For seven years, they were like: ‘Nope, the movie is still not in profit.’ And we were like, ‘How?’ And then there were things.”