Former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's second criminal trial over the alleged sexual assaults of women, at least one occurring 18 years ago, is set to start in Los Angeles this week. Jury selection begins Monday, NPR reports. The start of the Los Angeles trial comes five years after the first stories exposing his illicit actions against women were first published by The New York Times and The New Yorker. Those stories also helped the #MeToo movement expand, eventually taking down other powerful men in Hollywood and beyond. The 70-year-old Weinstein is already serving a 23-year sentence tied to his 2020 conviction in New York for charges of criminal sexual act and rape in the third degree. The Los Angeles trial is significant, as Weinstein is appealing his New York conviction. If found guilty, the Los Angeles verdict could add decades to his prison time. If his New York appeal is successful, the Los Angeles verdict could be the only substantial reason he stays in prison.
In Los Angeles, Weinstein is facing 11 charges that he sexually assaulted women in separate incidents over a span of nearly a decade, a larger case than the one in New York. Weinstein was first charged with sexual assault in Los Angeles in 2020 just as his New York trial was getting started. He was eventually indicted in Los Angeles in July 2021 for four counts of forcible rape and forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery by restraint and one count of sexual penetration by use of force. Weinstein allegedly raped a woman at a hotel between September 2004 and September 2005. He is also facing accusations that he raped another woman on two separate occasions in November 2009 and November 2010 at a hotel in Beverly Hills. Weinstein is accused of sexually assaulting another woman at a Beverly Hills hotel in May 2010 and with sexually assaulting two women during separate incidents in 2013.