The Crown Prosecution Service said there was “no longer a realistic prospect of conviction” after the disgraced producer was charged in 2022.
Prosecutors in The United Kingdom announced on Wednesday that it had dropped indecent assault charges against Harvey Weinstein, saying in a statement that “there is no longer a realistic prospect of a conviction.”
The scandal-hit producer was charged by the British Crown Prosecution Service in July 2022 following Weinstein's conviction in sexual assault trials in New York and Los Angeles; the New York conviction has since been dismissed, pending a retrial.
In the UK, Weinstein was facing two counts of indecent assault against a single woman over an alleged incident in August 1996. The alleged victim – now 50 – has not been identified and the Crown Prosecution Service did not share any details about its investigation or the charges when the charges were announced in July 2022.
However, Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS's special crime and counter-terrorism branch, said in a statement (via the BBC): “Having reviewed the evidence in this case, the CPS has decided to discontinue criminal proceedings against Harvey Weinstein.”
The CPS did not explain why there was “no realistic prospect of conviction” but added that both parties – Weinstein and the alleged victim – had been notified of their decision.
Weinstein has won a series of legal victories in recent months, starting with the overturning of his conviction in a New York trial. He was initially convicted of first-degree criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape in the original trial in February 2020 and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
In April 2024, the New York Court of Appeals overturned the conviction. In a 77-page decision, a majority of the justices ruled that the judge who presided over Weinstein’s trial, Judge James M. Burke, should not allow prosecutors to allow defendants whose allegations were not part of the charges against him to testify at trial. A potential retrial is now scheduled for November.
Weinstein, who was recently hospitalized with coronavirus and double pneumonia, remains behind bars awaiting trial in New York for his 16-year prison sentence following a trial in Los Angeles.
