Filmmaker Harvey Weinstein, accused by dozens of women of sexual abuse, was charged in New York on Friday for rape and forced fellatio, a first applause from the #MeToo movement.
More than seven months after the first charges against him, 66-year-old Mr. Weinstein, wearing a navy blue jacket over a blue sweater and a light shirt, took another step in disgrace by committing himself Friday morning to the Manhattan police.
During a flash court hearing in front of a packed house, a judge then confirmed the conditions of his release, previously negotiated with his lawyer: a deposit of one million dollars, the wearing of an electronic bracelet, and handing over his passport to the authorities.
His lawyer Ben Brafman, a tenor of the New York Bar who had in 2011 the abandonment of the lawsuit against Dominique Strauss-Kahn in the case of the Sofitel, said he would "act very quickly" to exonerate his client.
"We believe that (the charges) are constitutionally flawed" and "not supported by evidence," he said.
The next hearing is scheduled for July 30th.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office said the rape charge related to March 18, 2013, at a hotel address in Midtown. The identity of the victim has not been specified. This would be a new charge, unpublished so far.
The 2004 charge appears to correspond to Lucia Evans' allegations, but the prosecutor has not confirmed it.
She had already publicly accused Harvey Weinstein of forcing her to give him a blowjob at the headquarters of his production company Miramax.
Since the publication of the first revelations about him in early October, Harvey Weinstein has been accused by a hundred or so actresses - including Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow or Salma Hayek - of models and ex-sex workers ranging from harassment to rape.
In the New York Times and New Yorker Pulitzer Prize-winning surveys, it appeared that Weinstein had used his power for nearly 40 years to force these women to give in to his sexual fantasies, sometimes help by its employees and buying the silence of some victims via confidentiality agreements.
It also turned out that many people were aware of his behavior, but had preferred to keep quiet, often for fear of seeing their career ruined by the all-powerful producer.
The revelations have had the effect of a bomb. Hundreds of women, under the hashtag #MeToo, began to testify about sexual assaults they had been killing for years. The movement has brought dozens of men to power in sectors as diverse as cinema, media, fashion, gastronomy or music.
" Descent into hell "
The arrest of the producer comes as Manhattan prosecutor Cyrus Vance was suspected of backing out of a legal battle that many lawyers point out is far from won for the prosecution. Especially since Ben Brafman is considered a formidable opponent.
"Today's indictment marks a major step forward in an ongoing investigation," Prosecutor Vance soberly said in a statement Friday, thanking "the courageous victims who have come out of silence."
The indictment comes after new information that Harvey Weinstein would also be investigated at the federal level, which may have prompted Vance to take action.
If a conviction is far from over, several figures of the #MeToo movement applauded the images of a handcuffed Weinstein.
"I'm in shock," ex-actress Rose McGowan, who said she was raped by Weinstein in 1997 at the Sundance Film Festival, told ABC. "I must admit that I did not expect to see him handcuffed one day. "
"Weinstein is now taking his first step towards an inevitable descent into hell. We, women, finally have a real hope of justice, "tweeted actress Asia Argento, who claims to have been raped by Weinstein in Cannes, also in 1997.
The Time's Up movement, born in the wake of #MeToo to legally support victims of sexual abuse, pointed out that the producer had "broken the lives of countless women" and hoped that "justice would prevail" .
Since October, Weinstein had been away from the spotlight, supposedly on treatment for sexual addictions in Arizona.
His wife, Georgina Chapman, a Briton who co-founded the fashion house Marchesa and with whom he had two children, left him at the first revelations. She said in a recent interview that their divorce was imminent.
The Weinstein Company, the film studio he co-founded with his brother Bob, was sued for tolerating or even facilitating the producer's sexual predator behavior. He was put in liquidation.