Hollywood mogul surrenders to NYPD
The scandal jumped in October of 2017 and since then the drip of women who have suffered silently abuses and violations by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has been constant. This Friday, seven months after everything exploded, Weinstein has surrendered to a New York police station to be under arrest and be available to Justice on charges of sexual abuse araised against him. Harvey Weinstein arrived at 7:27 local time (11.27 GMT) to the police station number 1 of the New York Police Department (NYPD) to comply with the registration procedure and in order to have his photo and fingerprints taken.The victims of Harvey Weinstein needed to see the image of their attacker in handcuffs.
Now they already have it, after the film producer was formally accused in New York of raping a woman and forcing another to perform oral sex. It is thus initiated through criminal proceedings, the first criminal trial in the United States against which it was one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood seven months after the cascade of public denunciations against this giant of the entertainment industry that gave life to the movement #MeToo. It's just the first day of a long process. The filmmaker arrived in New York on a private flight on Thursday night. After seven o'clock in the morning, local time was delivered at the police station in Tribeca, the neighborhood where he was the king. The film producer arrived at the police station in a dark suit, without a tie and with a light blue sweater, carrying three books, accompanied by two other people who looked like bodyguards and who accompanied him since he left the vehicle that took him to the police station. Fifty journalists, placed on both sides of the police station, followed the entrance of Weinstein, who avoided approaching them to make statements.
After completing his police file, he left the police station in handcuffs to testify before Judge Kevin McGrath in a criminal court in Manhattan. Harvey Weinstein agreed with the prosecutor Cyrus Vance to pay bail between one and two million dollars, in addition to having to deliver his passport and wear an electronic bracelet. His movements will be limited. The New York Police Department issued a brief note one hour after the arrest in which it explained that Harvey Weinstein had been indicted and charged with four sexual crimes, including rape and sexual abuse in relation to two women. It also appreciates the courage of the victims of the producer "who stepped forward looking for justice" and stresses that this action is the result of collaboration with the Manhattan district attorney's office. Weinstein is accused of rape in first and third degree in the case of a first woman, who has not yet been identified. The charges also center on the accusation of the actress Lucia Evans, to which the producer forced her to practice oral sex in 2014. They met one night in a club and told him that she was trying to make her way in the industry.
The businessman invited her to visit him at the Miramax offices in Tribeca, where the assault took place. "I told him again and again that I did not want that, to stop," the actress revealed to The New Yorker magazine, in the extensive report that marked the beginning of the collapse of Harvey Weinstein. "I tried to get away, but maybe I did not do it with enough force," she said, "I did not want to kick him or fight him." "I just gave up," she admitted, referring to the producer's physical size. Since last October, Weinstein has been accused by dozens of women after the first denunciations appeared in The New Yorker magazine and in The New York Times. These accusations unleashed the #MeToo movement, a social rebellion against sexual abuse that extended to the world of cinema and the media, among other sectors. And the creation of a legal defense fund called "Time's Up", which already totals 21 million dollars in donations and seeks to help those women with low wages to protect themselves from the consequences that may have report sexual abuse. Among the actresses who accused Harvey Weinstein are Gwyneth Paltrow, Salma Hayek, Ashley Judd, Lupita Nyong'o and Angelina Jolie. The prosecution of Manhattan examined three years ago the complaint also of the Italian model Ampa Battilana Gutiérrez, but the prosecutor decided to archive it for lack of evidence that could be argued before a jury. There are also records in Los Angeles for the complaints of five women, and in London, where a dozen cases are investigated.
Weinstein, producer of films such as Pulp Fiction, Gangs of New York or Shakespeare in Love, had not appeared publicly after the first revelations in October about the sexual assaults he had committed. And again he denied the accusations and reiterated that sexual relations were consensual. The federal authorities also investigate the producer, among other things, for a possible financial crime. His lawyer confirmed in March that he was in a rehabilitation center in Arizona to treat his sex addiction. The announcement of the prosecution of the producer, after months of investigation by the Manhattan prosecutor, accused of delaying the case, was favorably received by several figures of the #MeToo movement. "Like many of Weinstein's victims, I had lost hope of seeing our rapist in court," actress Rose McGowan said after the announcement of his indictment on Thursday night. "Today we took a step towards justice," she added. "It's super cathartic for many victims," said Tarana Burke, founder of #MeToo. "We are probably witnessing a change in the way we treat cases of sexual violence." said Burke.