Harvey Weinstein extradited to LA to face further sexual assault charges

(Photo by Thomas Hawk/Flickr)

Disgraced movie mogul and convicted sex-offender Harvey Weinstein, who was convicted in 2020 of two felonies and is serving a 23-year prison term in upstate New York, was extradited to Los Angeles on Tuesday to face further sexual assault charges, reportedly involving five women from 2004 and 2013.

The New York Department of Corrections issued a statement saying Weinstein was “handed over to the appropriate officials for transport per a court order” Tuesday morning.

The charges in Los Angeles County include four counts of forcible rape, four counts of forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery by restraint, and one count of sexual penetration by force, CNN reported. Weinstein had been slated to be extradited to L.A. in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed that.

Weinstein was charged in 2020 with sex-related counts involving three women. L.A. County prosecutors filed additional charges against him last fall, alleging he sexually assaulted to women in Beverly Hills.

More than 80 women made sexual abuse allegations against Weinstein, now 69, in 2017. In May 2018, he was arrested and charged in New York with rape and, in February 2020, he was found guilty of one count of criminal sexual assault in the first degree and one count of rape in the third degree.

Weinstein and his brother, Bob, co-founded Miramax, which produced films such as “Sex, Lies, and Videotape, “Pulp Fiction” and the Oscar-winning “Shakespeare in Love.”

Read the full indictment here.