Harvey Weinstein Will Be Charged With Rape in New York, Officials Say

Authored by nytimes.com and submitted by pipsdontsqueak

But the accusations by Ms. Evans and the other woman were not subject to a statute of limitations because they involved forcible compulsion, for which any time limit was effectively lifted after 2001, the officials said.

Ms. Evans was a college student and an aspiring actress when Mr. Weinstein approached her at a New York club in 2004, she told The New Yorker. Mr. Weinstein and an assistant began calling her, asking to meet. After she arrived at the Miramax office for a daytime meeting, she told The New Yorker that Mr. Weinstein pulled her head down and forced her to perform oral sex, despite her repeated protests and attempts to get away.

Investigators are still hoping that more women might come forward.

In the course of the investigation, prosecutors created what amounted to an elaborate timeline of Mr. Weinstein’s whereabouts in an effort to take advantage of a section of New York State law that says the clock stops ticking toward the statute of limitations when a defendant is continuously outside the state. Investigators compiled instances in which Mr. Weinstein left New York to determine whether some accusations of assault, even if they appeared to fall outside the statute of limitations, could in fact be included in criminal charges.

Federal prosecutors have also been investigating whether Mr. Weinstein’s abusive conduct violated federal stalking laws and examined the movie producer’s finances, several people with knowledge of that inquiry have said.

The federal investigation, which began last year, focused on fraud allegations in connection with two auction items that were to be offered together at an AIDS charity fund-raiser in France in May 2015, the people have said. The items were a sitting with a famous fashion photographer and a package of tickets to a Hollywood awards event and party.

News outlets have reported on dozens of allegations against Mr. Weinstein, many of them sharing a common narrative: Women reported to a hotel or office for what they thought were work reasons, only to discover that Mr. Weinstein sometimes seemed to have ulterior interests.

But it remains to be seen how much supporting evidence prosecutors will be allowed to introduce in seeking to demonstrate a pattern of criminal behavior. Law enforcement officials said that even though some of the cases they have investigated fall outside the statute of limitations, prosecutors could still call those women to testify to establish a pattern of previous bad acts, just as prosecutors did in the Bill Cosby trial. A judge would have to permit their testimony.

Dallywack3r on May 24th, 2018 at 20:03 UTC »

Bold prediction- this man will never see the inside of a jail cell.

deltacharlie-52 on May 24th, 2018 at 19:44 UTC »

The once untouchable is now on the cusp of being arrested. Good riddance.

KJones77 on May 24th, 2018 at 19:41 UTC »

Finally. LOCK HIM UP