Harvey Weinstein, the once-powerful movie mogul who gave us such hits as “Pulp Fiction” and “Gangs of New York”, has pled not-guilty to the rape charges brought against him by two women he allegedly raped.
Weinstein was the first of many who fell to the #MeToo wave. Others, like Kevin Spacey, Russel Simmons, Garrison Keeler, Dustin Hoffman, James Franco and many more, faced financial ruin and career-ending scandal in greater or lesser degrees.
But so far, Weinstein is the only high-profile Hollywood figure facing serious criminal charges. These charges involve two alleged victims. One, Lucia Evans, has been named. The other has not been named.
Evans claims that Harvey Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex on him in 2004, during a meeting in his office in Tribeca. The other, unnamed victim alleges that Weinstein held her against her will and raped her in a hotel room in Manhattan, in 2013.
Weinstein has been wearing a GPS tracker as part of a $1 million bail deal. He arrived at a Manhattan courthouse earlier this morning to enter his plea; not guilty.
The courthouse was packed, and many would-be viewers were turned away. (Notably, Gloria Allred managed to get into the court to see Weinstein arraigned.) This is the first criminal charge Harvey Weinstein is facing.
It will almost surely not be the last. Prosecutors in LA and London are also said to be reviewing the claims made by Weinstein’s accusers.
Weinstein was once a huge deal in Hollywood. He was notorious for his violent temper, and in certain circles, his penchant for “massages” from aspiring starlets. He has been accused of assault and harassment by dozens of women since stories first broke of his alleged abuses last October.
Since then, Weinstein has been expelled from the company he ran with his brother, Bob. (Bob Weinstein has faced his own sexual harassment allegations, though they were less widely publicized.) Bob Weinstein went on the record to say his brother’s actions were “depraved”, “indefensible and crazy”. Bob Weinstein condemned the “inconsiderable suffering” caused by his brother’s wickedness.
It’s enough to make one wonder when the other brother’s misdeeds will come to light.
In addition to being thrown under the bus by his own brother, Harvey Weinstein has been booted from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, among other film industry groups. That’s the group that runs the Oscars.
And Harvey Weinstein was deeply involved in the Oscars industry, which has for many years been known as a profoundly political game of favor-trading and influence peddling. Given that deep involvement, Weinstein surely knows where all the skeletons are buried in LA.
If the right prosecutor, determined to clean the filth from the gutters of Hollywood, were to get at Harvey Weinstein, well. The fat man might sing like a sparrow.
And then what a great show we’ll all be the audience for. The greatest show of Harvey’s whole career. If Weinstein tells all his sordid tales to the cops, you can bet the mighty will be falling left and right.
And then we’ll all get to see whether old Oscar really does have feet of clay, as many critics of Hollywood have long suspected he does.
After all, most golden idols do.