Disgraced Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has just been indicted on new criminal charges in New York City.
Weinstein, a major Democratic Party donor, was hit with additional sex crimes charges ahead of his coming retrial in Manhattan.
The new indictment was revealed by prosecutors at a hearing on Thursday.
The indictment will remain under seal until Weinstein’s arraignment.
The arraignment is scheduled for next week on September 18.
72-year-old Weinstein is currently recovering from emergency heart surgery.
He was rushed from Rikers Island prison to Bellevue on Sunday evening due to “several medical complications.”
The film producer had a procedure and surgery to remove fluid from his heart and lungs on Monday.
“As we have extensively stated before, Mr. Weinstein suffers a plethora of significant health issues that need ongoing treatment,” Craig Rothfeld and Juda Engelmayer, Weinstein’s authorized representatives, said in a statement.
“We are grateful to the executive team at the New York City Department of Correction and Rikers Island for acting swiftly in taking him to Bellevue Hospital.”
The disgraced entertainment mogul has been housed at New York’s Rikers Island jail while he awaits his retrial over accusations of rape.
His high-priced team of lawyers has been using his ill health to push for his early release.
Weinstein was not at Thursday’s hearing.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office disclosed at a recent court hearing that prosecutors had begun presenting to a grand jury evidence of up to three additional allegations against Weinstein.
The allegations date as far back as the mid-2000s.
Prosecutors had been seeking to retry Weinstein after his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges was tossed by an appeals court earlier this year.
It remains to be seen whether the new charges will be included in the retrial, as prosecutors hope, or handled as a separate case by the court.
The new charges come after prosecutors in Britain announced last week that they would no longer pursue charges of indecent assault against Weinstein.
The Hollywood Democrat megadonor was the most prominent villain of the #MeToo movement in 2017.
At the time, a stream of women began going public with accounts of his behavior which included rape and sexual abuse.
The 72-year-old co-founder of the film and television production company Miramax has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
He is next expected to appear in Manhattan court for a hearing in the case on September 12.
His retrial is tentatively slated for November.
