Time will tell whether notorious movie producer Harvey Weinstein will face criminal charges for alleged sexual misconduct, but he should be worried, says LawNewz.com founder Dan Abrams. On Thursday’s “Good Morning America” on ABC, Abrams discussed reports that the NYPD believes charges will be presented to a grand jury.
“If you’re Harvey Weinstein right now, you have to be very nervous,” Abrams said, “based on the pressure that the New York Police Department is putting on the DA to file charges here.”
Abrams noted that the reason why there’s so much more potential for charges against Weinstein than we’ve seen against others accused of similar crimes is because there’s no statute of limitations issue. Bill Cosby has been accused of sexual misconduct by many women, but so far only one criminal case has gone to trial (resulting in a hung jury). That’s because so many of the accusations against Cosby are from well in the past, and statutes of limitations prohibited cases being brought against him so many years later.
“People aren’t now talking about things that happened in the 70s and the 80s,” Abrams said about Weinstein. “They’re talking about things that happened last year, two years ago, six months ago. No statute of limitations problems … as a result you’ve got a much more active situation when it comes to these investigations, and not the excuse of saying, “Oh sorry, there’s nothing we can do.”
Weinstein has been accused by more than 70 women of varying degrees of sexual harassment and assault.
The Manhattan DA’s Office, meanwhile, is not commenting on any investigations or the timelines of potential cases.