NEW YORK _ A frail Harvey Weinstein arrived at Manhattan Criminal Court Monday leaning on a walker and needing help getting up stairs. The perv producer was pale and flanked by his legal team as roughly 20 protesters holding signs reading "Believe Survivors" and "Justice for Survivors" watched him shuffle into the courthouse.
"Thank god your mother is not here to see this," one protester hollered at Weinstein.
The disgraced film producer ignored questions from dozens of reporters as he walked toward Justice James Burke's 13th-floor courtroom for last-minute legal arguments ahead of Tuesday's kickoff to a trial expected to last as long as eight weeks and bring in journalists and film stars from all over the world.
Weinstein faces charges of first- and third-degree rape, criminal sex in the first degree, and two counts of predatory sexual assault.
If convicted of the top charge of predatory sex assault in the first degree, Weinstein could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Weinstein, 67, who was arrested on May 25, 2018, has been accused by his former production assistant Mimi Haleyi of performing forcible oral sex on her during a harrowing 2006 encounter in his Manhattan apartment.
Prosecutors have also charged the "Shakespeare in Love" producer with raping a separate woman, whose identity has remained anonymous, inside a Manhattan hotel room in March 2013.
"The Sopranos" actress Anabella Sciorra is expected to testify during the mammoth trial about Weinstein allegedly raping her 26 years ago along with a number of unnamed women who say they experienced similar disturbing incidents between 2006 and 2013.
More than 90 women globally have accused Weinstein of nonconsensual and in some cases violent sexual encounters since The New York Times and The New Yorker first published some of the allegations about the mega-producer in October 2017.
Weinstein's cataclysmic downfall sparked the #MeToo movement and led to the firing of high-profile men in multiple industries.
(With Stephen Rex Brown)
