Britain stops criminal proceedings against Harvey Weinstein

LONDON — Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein will not face sexual assault charges in Britain, prosecutors said Thursday.

Prosecutors, who admitted two sexual assault charges against Weinstein in 2022, said they had decided to drop the case because there was “no longer any realistic prospect of a conviction.”

“We have explained our decision to all those involved,” the CPS said in a statement. “We would always encourage potential victims of sexual assault to come forward and inform the police and we will prosecute where our legal requirements are met.”

Weinstein became the most well-known villain of the #MeToo movement in 2017, when women began coming forward with accounts of his behavior. Following these revelations, British police said they were investigating multiple allegations of sexual assault that allegedly took place between the 1980s and 2015.

In June 2022, prosecutors announced that they had authorized London's Metropolitan Police to bring two charges of sexual assault against Weinstein. The charge was an incident that occurred in London in 1996. The victim was in her 50s at the time of the announcement.

Unlike many other countries, there is no statute of limitations for rape and sexual abuse in the UK.

Weinstein, who denies raping or sexually assaulting anyone, remains in custody in New York while he awaits retrial in Manhattan, prosecutors said in August.

After the retrial, he is set to begin serving a 16-year prison sentence in California for another rape conviction in Los Angeles, authorities said. Weinstein was sentenced in Los Angeles in 2022, while already serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York.

His 2020 conviction in Manhattan was overturned earlier this year when the state's highest court ruled that the judge in the original trial had improperly allowed testimony against Weinstein based on allegations that were not part of the case.

Weinstein, co-founder of the entertainment conglomerate Miramax and the film studio The Weinstein Company, was once one of the most powerful men in Hollywood and produced films such as “Pulp Fiction” and “The Crying Game”.

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Associated Press writer Brian Melley contributed.