Manhattan prosecutors on Tuesday said they were “actively pursuing” additional allegations of sexual assault against the disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein ahead of a new trial that was likely to begin in the fall.
Nicole Blumberg, an assistant district attorney, said in Manhattan criminal court that her office had identified allegations of rape and sexual assault against Mr. Weinstein that had occurred within the statute of limitations, and that prosecutors planned to ask a grand jury to indict him. She said they were working in a “trauma-informed” manner with his accusers.
“In 2020, there were women who were not ready to proceed with the legal process,” she said. “Some of those women are now ready to proceed.”
When the judge in the case, Justice Curtis Farber, pressed for a date when a grand jury could hear new charges, Ms. Blumberg could not give one, but she said prosecutors could be prepared to go to trial by the fall, at one point indicating November.
It would be the second trial of Mr. Weinstein in New York involving charges of sex crimes. His 2020 conviction was overturned in April after the highest court in the state found that the presiding judge had erred by allowing prosecutors to call several accusers as witnesses, even though their allegations had not led to charges.
Shortly after, Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said that his office would retry Mr. Weinstein even as the appeals court’s ruling limited prosecutors’ ability to use some of the evidence from the first trial.
“We look forward to having a new day in court, and the Court of Appeals decision not being the last word or chapter on this,” Mr. Bragg said at the time.
Mr. Weinstein is being held at the Rikers Island jail complex while he awaits a new trial in New York. Last year, in a separate case in California, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for committing sex crimes in Los Angeles County.
On Tuesday, Mr. Weinstein was wheeled into the courtroom in a wheelchair, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and blue tie. His left hand was cuffed to the chair, while his right held a book under it.
Also in court was Jessica Mann, one of the accusers in the 2020 case who testified during the trial. Ms. Mann was an aspiring actress when she said Mr. Weinstein raped her in a New York hotel room.
Mr. Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, has said that he would object to calling Ms. Mann at a retrial because, he said, Mr. Weinstein has already served enough time to account for the sentence in her case.
On Tuesday, Mr. Aidala said he believed that prosecutors were utilizing “delay tactics” to stall a new trial.
“They have a defendant and now they’re out there looking for a crime,” he said, adding that it was akin to a hotline “1-800-GET-HARVEY.”
Mr. Weinstein’s health has continued to deteriorate in recent years, Mr. Aidala said to Justice Farber. According to Mr. Weinstein’s doctors, Mr. Aidala told the judge, his client has “fluid on his heart, fluid in his lungs” and spinal stenosis, among other ailments. Mr. Aidala said that Mr. Weinstein was exhausted and in “excruciating pain” and that he was not “getting the treatment he needs.”
At the height of his career in Hollywood, Mr. Weinstein was lauded as a producer who could make careers. However, according to his accusers, he also wielded that power to harass and sexually assault women, many of whom were young and trying to make it in the industry.
In 2020, Mr. Weinstein was convicted of raping one woman and committing a criminal sexual act against another. But in a 4-to-3 decision, the New York Court of Appeals overturned those convictions this year, saying he had not received a fair trial.
In a May hearing, prosecutors said they were vetting allegations from people who had accused Mr. Weinstein of sexual assault in recent years to review which accusations fell within the statute of limitations. At the time, prosecutors did not provide information about how many accusers they were interviewing or the details of what they said.
