Harvey Weinstein Pleads Not Guilty To New Sex Crime Charge In New York

NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.

A new indictment charged the jailed ex-movie mogul with committing a criminal sex act, accusing him of forcing oral sex on a woman at some point between April 29, 2006, and May 6 of that year.

Weinstein has long maintained that he never engaged in any sexual activity that wasn’t consensual.

No details about the new accuser were released.

“Thanks to this survivor who bravely came forward, Harvey Weinstein now stands indicted for an additional alleged violent sexual assault,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement. The Democrat added that the investigation continues.

Weinstein lawyer Arthur Aidala said he had “absolutely no clue” about the accuser’s identity or the specifics of the allegation.

“We have a lot of work to do. We have to find out who that person is. We have to do an investigation,” he said outside court.

Weinstein “never forced himself on anyone,” the attorney said.

The 72-year-old Weinstein, who is recovering from emergency surgery, came to court in a wheelchair, carrying two novels with him. He appeared to watch the proceeding intently.

Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren’t part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.

Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.

It’s not clear