Harvey Weinstein Charged With Rape in Los Angeles as N.Y. Trial Starts

A day later, Weinstein met the second woman at a hotel restaurant in West Los Angeles and invited her and another woman up to his room. There, he trapped her in a bathroom, grabbed her breasts and masturbated, prosecutors said.

Those two allegations were contained in a criminal complaint released in Los Angeles on one of the most remarkable days since revelations about the movie producer’s sexual harassment of women set in motion the global #MeToo movement.

Only hours before prosecutors in Los Angeles unveiled the new case against Weinstein, he had hobbled with a walker into a courtroom in Manhattan for a hearing on the eve of his long-anticipated rape trial there. Jury selection was to begin Tuesday.

Now, however, even if Weinstein prevails in Manhattan, he will face a second trial in Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles County district attorney, Jackie Lacey, said Weinstein has been charged with one felony count each of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by use of force and sexual battery by restraint. He faces up to 28 years in prison if convicted.

Weinstein’s lawyers declined to comment on the latest charges.

The importance of the New York trial to many of Weinstein’s accusers and their sympathizers was clear Monday, as protesters gathered outside the state Supreme Court in Manhattan on a damp day. Some held signs with slogans like “justice for survivors” and “coercion is not consent.”

In New York, Weinstein is charged with raping one woman, who has not been identified in court documents, at a Midtown Manhattan hotel in March 2013 and forcing a second woman, Mimi Haleyi, a production assistant, to allow him to perform oral sex on her at his apartment in Manhattan in 2006.

Weinstein maintains that his sexual encounters with the women were consensual.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .