Harvey Weinstein to be charged in U.K. over assault claims

British prosecutors said Wednesday they have authorized police to charge ex-film producer Harvey Weinstein with two counts of indecent assault against a woman in London in 1996.

The Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement that "charges have been authorized" against Weinstein, 70, following a review of evidence gathered by London's Metropolitan Police.

Police said the offences against the woman, now in her 50s, allegedly took place in July and August 1996.

After revelations about Weinstein emerged in 2017, British police said they were investigating multiple allegations of sexual assault against Weinstein that reportedly took place between the 1980s and 2015.

Unlike many other countries, Britain does not have a statute of limitations for rape or sexual assault.

Weinstein is serving a 23-year sentence for rape after his 2020 conviction in New York for offences against two women.

He is jailed in California, where he was extradited last year, and is awaiting trial on charges he assaulted five women in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills from 2004 to 2013.

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

The announcement in England on Wednesday came two weeks after U.K. prosecutors authorized police to charge actor Kevin Spacey with four counts of sexual assault against three men. The alleged incidents took place in London between March 2005 and August 2008, and one in western England in April 2013.