Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul who was charged with a new sex crime in Manhattan last month, will face a single trial, likely next spring.
Mr. Weinstein, 72, was already going to be retried by the Manhattan district attorney’s office in an earlier case that had been overturned and now a jury will simultaneously consider a fresh accusation that he sexually assaulted a woman in a hotel in 2006.
Prosecutors asked the judge in the two cases, Curtis Farber, to consolidate them. Doing so, they argued, would avoid “lengthy, burdensome, duplicative trials” that would in turn “further clog the court system, and burden multiple juries.” Justice Farber granted that request during a hearing on Wednesday.
Mr. Weinstein, who held two paperback books as he was wheeled into the courtroom for the hearing, has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. As his lawyers and prosecutors discussed next steps before trial, Mr. Weinstein at one point closed his eyes briefly and shook his head, which was resting in his right hand.
The next hearing in the case, during which the judge intends to rule on all pretrial motions, is scheduled for Jan. 29.
Lindsay M. Goldbrum, a lawyer who said she represented the victim in the new indictment, said her team was pleased with the judge’s ruling.
“While Ms. Doe has previously chosen not to publicly share this painful portion of her experience, she has always remained consistent in her conversations with the Manhattan D.A.’s office and maintains that this encounter was not consensual,” she said.
The hearing on Wednesday was just the latest legal challenge for the former Hollywood producer, who has been wending his way through the legal system in New York and Los Angeles for years.
At the height of his power, Mr. Weinstein was seen as a producer who could make careers, as well as hit movies. Behind the scenes, according to his accusers, he wielded that power to harass and sexually assault women, many of whom were young and trying to establish themselves in the film industry.
In 2020, Mr. Weinstein was convicted in New York of raping an aspiring actress in a hotel room. He was also convicted of assaulting a former television production assistant, who testified that he had forced oral sex on her in his Manhattan apartment.
His New York case was followed by another conviction and a 16-year prison sentence in a separate sex-crimes case in Los Angeles.
However, the New York conviction was overturned in April after the state’s highest court found that the judge who had presided over the trial had erred by allowing prosecutors to call several accusers as witnesses, even though their allegations had not led to charges.
Prosecutors in Manhattan, led by the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, said they would retry Mr. Weinstein.
Through it all, Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers have said that his health is failing and have accused prosecutors of using delay tactics to stall a new trial while the former producer’s health deteriorates in jail.
In September, Mr. Weinstein was moved from the Rikers Island jail complex to Bellevue Hospital for emergency heart surgery. It was not the first time in recent months that he has been moved to the hospital for treatment of a litany of health issues.
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