Harvey Weinstein charged with new sex crimes in New York

Harvey Weinstein has been charged with new sex crimes, the New York Attorney General's Office announced on Thursday.

The grand jury indictment will remain sealed until the disgraced producer is officially arraigned on September 18, at which time the exact charges, number of victims and allegations of sexual abuse will be announced. the Associated Press reports.

Weinstein did not attend Thursday's hearing because he is currently hospitalized after undergoing heart surgery earlier this week.

At a hearing in May following Weinstein's overturning of his conviction, prosecutors said they might file additional charges against him. Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg told the court that “some people who were unwilling to come forward in 2020 now appear to be willing to do so.”

Those potential charges – which reportedly relied on allegations from three other victims, rather than the two women who were the subject of Weinstein's first New York trial – were later presented to a grand jury, which indicted Weinstein on the still-sealed charges.

According to CNN, a judge has yet to decide whether the new charges will be joined to Weinstein's planned retrial after his guilty verdict in the first New York trial was overturned by an appeals court. Weinstein remains behind bars for his sex crime conviction in Los Angeles.

However, due to Weinstein's numerous health problems, the judge ruled Thursday that he can remain indefinitely at Bellevue Hospital rather than at the Rikers Island prison complex, where he was housed after the overturned verdict and pending a retrial.