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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Disgraced former film producer Harvey Weinstein was extradited today from New York to Los Angeles, where he is charged with sex-related counts involving five women between 2004 and 2013.
Custody of Weinstein this morning “was handed over to the appropriate officials for transport to the state of California per a court order," the New York Department of Corrections said in a statement.
It was not immediately clear when Weinstein would appear in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom.
Weinstein, 69, was serving a 23-year term in New York after being convicted in that state of a criminal sex act against a former production assistant and raping an aspiring actress.
His attorneys had tried to block his transfer from New York to Los Angeles until he was “medically fit'' to be moved to Los Angeles.
A court document filed in Los Angeles by the defense contended that Weinstein was in “urgent need of medical treatment to save his eyesight, and that this treatment could take anywhere from 24 to 36 months,''' and had asked a judge in Los Angeles to delay the transfer until his medical treatment is completed.
In court papers filed earlier this month, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office asserted that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is capable of providing medical care to Weinstein.
Weinstein was initially charged in January 2020 with sex-related counts involving three women. Los Angeles County prosecutors filed additional charges against him last October alleging that he sexually assaulted two other women in Beverly Hills.
He is reportedly facing a sealed indictment in Los Angeles involving those same charges that would allow prosecutors to move forward more quickly with his trial.
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