Hollywood producer Eric Weinberg during his arraignment at Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center on October 25, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
Hollywood producer Eric Michael Weinberg is in jail in Los Angeles after a judge revoked his $5 million bail at the request of prosecutors.
Weinberg, whose behind the popular TV show Scrubs, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to 18 felonies involving five women, three weeks after he was arrested. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Victoria Wilson ordered him jailed immediately, agreeing with prosecutors that Weinberg is a danger to society.
Prosecutors filed a sealed motion seeking to remand Weinberg, then Deputy District Attorney Marlene Martinez argued in court Tuesday that Weinberg’s indiscrimination when choosing his victims and the locations of his crimes demonstrate “there was no less restrictive mechanism to protect the public.”
“It could be any woman at any place in public,” said Micha Star Liberty, an Oakland-based lawyer who represents 13 women who say Weinberg assaulted them. She declined to say if any of her clients are among the five women whom Weinberg is formally accused of assaulting, citing concerns that the women may be publicly identified.
Martinez said in court that police have received 70 tips regarding Weinberg since an Oct. 5 press conference announcing his charges, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“We know that there are a lot more,” Liberty told Law&Crime.
Weinberg’s lawyer, Philip Cohen, said Weinberg should be allowed to stay out of jail on home confinement, but Star said Judge Wilson agreed with Martinez that he was too dangerous to be anywhere but a jail cell.
“It was a pretty incredible moment in court,” Liberty said. “The judge was very reasoned and courageous. These are not easy decisions to make, but she had both the law and the facts on her side and she made the right call.”
Liberty said her 13 clients as well as other women “who I’ve talked to about him who are not my clients were all able to breathe a collective sigh of relief because he’s off the streets.”
“That was very scary and very stressful for all of those women,” Liberty said.
Under investigation for years, Weinberg is charged with six counts of sexual penetration by use of force, four counts of oral copulation, three counts of forcible rape, two counts of sexual battery by restraint and one count each of assault by means of force likely to cause great bodily injury, attempted sexual penetration by use of force and false imprisonment by violence.
The alleged assaults occurred between 2014 and 2019, but police said at the Oct. 5 press conference that they are investigating other assault allegations from years earlier.
The Los Angeles County’s jail roster lists Weinberg’s arrest location as the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center, where he was arraigned about 11:40 a.m.. He was booked into jail at 1:08 p.m.
His arraignment prompted two other celebrity sexual assault trials to break for lunch early, because Martinez is one of two DAs prosecuting disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and Cohen is defending That ’70s Show actor Danny Masterson in his trial for three counts of forcible rape.
(Image: Photo by Robyn Beck – Pool/Getty Images)