Harvey Weinstein Expected To Turn Himself In To Authorities In New York City Friday
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) — Harvey Weinstein is expected to turn himself in to authorities in New York City Friday.
Weinstein has been the subject of an ongoing sexual misconduct investigation.
Sources tell CBS2 he is expected to turn himself in at the First Precinct in Manhattan, then appear before a judge.
Two officials told the Associated Press the charges relate to a former actress, Lucia Evans, who said Weinstein assaulted her in his New York offices in 2004.
Evans was among the first women to speak out about Weinstein. The case would be the first criminal charge against the film producer since scores of women began coming forward to accuse him of harassment or assault, triggering a cascade of accusations against media and entertainment figures that has become known as the #MeToo movement.
The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the investigation.
A grand jury has been hearing evidence in the case for weeks.
"We are working closely with Cy Vance and the Manhattan District Attorney's office on allegations received regarding the Weinstein affair," said NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea. "I'm not going to get into any details on the allegations beyond that there are several and the in-depth nature of the investigation I'm going to stay away from at this point."
Weinstein has repeatedly said he didn't have nonconsensual sex with anyone. His Benjamin Brafman had no comment on the matter.
The NYPD said other complaints are being examined, as well.
"I'm not going to give you an exact number, but it's more than one. We have several complaints, and it's actively being investigated," said Shea.
Evans told The New Yorker in a story published in October that Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex during a daytime meeting at his New York office in 2004, the summer before her senior year at Middlebury College.
"I said, over and over, 'I don't want to do this, stop, don't,'" she told the magazine. "I tried to get away, but maybe I didn't try hard enough. I didn't want to kick him or fight him."
She didn't report the incident to police at the time, telling The New Yorker's Ronan Farrow that she blamed herself for not fighting back.
"It was always my fault for not stopping him," she said.
In recent months, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has come under enormous public pressure to make a criminal case. Some women's groups, including the Hollywood activist group Time's Up, accused the Democrat of being too deferential to Weinstein and too dismissive of his accusers.
In March, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo took the extraordinary step of ordering the state's attorney general to investigate whether Vance acted properly in 2015 when he decided not to prosecute Weinstein over a previous allegation of unwanted groping, made by an Italian model.
Vance had insisted any decision would be based on the strength of the evidence, not on political considerations.
Weinstein was fired from the company he co-founded and expelled from the organization that bestows the Academy Awards last fall after The New York Times and The New Yorker published articles about his treatment of women, including multiple allegations that he groped actresses, exposed himself to them or forced them into unwanted sex.
His accusers included some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Several actresses and models accused him of criminal sexual assaults, including film actress Rose McGowan, who said Weinstein raped her in 1997 in Utah, "Sopranos" actress Annabella Sciorra, who said he raped her in her New York apartment in 1992, and the Norwegian actress Natassia Malthe, who said he attacked her in a London hotel room in 2008. Another aspiring actress, Mimi Haleyi, said Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in his New York apartment in 2006.
New York City police detectives said in early November that they were investigating allegations by another accuser, "Boardwalk Empire" actress Paz de la Huerta, who told police in October that Weinstein raped her twice in 2010.
Just last week, actress Asia Argento spoke out about her alleged experience at the Cannes film festival in France.
"In 1997, I was raped by Harvey Weinstein here at Cannes," she said. "I was 21 years old."
It's not clear whether Weinstein will face additional charges involving other women. More than 80 allegations have been leveled against him.
On Wednesday Brafman said in a court filing that federal prosecutors had launched a criminal investigation into the film producer.
(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
