The NYPD is ready to slap the cuffs on Harvey Weinstein, but the Manhattan District Attorney’s office has yet to sign off on the bust, according to a report.
“We’re ready to go with an arrest,” said a senior police official who told The Daily Beast that the former movie mogul could be charged with sexual assault.
The only thing keeping Weinstein out of jail, for the moment, is an okay from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance.
“We are still accumulating evidence,” Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce told the Daily News.
“It’s going very, very well. We have a lot of information. We have a lot of information that we handed over to the grand jury. I would ask you to talk to Cy Vance,” Boyce said.
“It’s his case right now. I would ask you to ask him, what his schedule is.”
Vance’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A law enforcement source said the DA’s office is still investigating.
“I have been assured that the filing of criminal charges against Mr. Weinstein has not been authorized and his arrest is not imminent,” his lawyer Ben Brafman said, adding that his client maintains his innocence.
The case authorities are looking to pin on Weinstein involves Lucia Evans, a college student and aspiring actress, who says she was forced to perform oral sex on Weinstein inside his Tribeca office in 2004 despite repeatedly telling him “no.”
Weinstein told her to lose weight if she wanted to be on his reality TV show. Evans first revealed the alleged attack to the New Yorker.
The actress said she told him over and over, “I don’t want to do this, stop, don’t.” In the end, “He overpowered me,” she told the magazine.
Evans is one of more than 50 women to accuse Weinstein of sexual harassment, assault or rape, including A-list actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Judd and Angelina Jolie.
Although the alleged incident involving Evans took place more than a decade ago, its severity may exempt Weinstein from a statute of limitations that requires all but the worst sex crimes charges to be brought within five years.
The NYPD is also investigating a rape claim against the portly producer from actress Paz de la Huerta. The “Boardwalk Empire” star told cops Weinstein raped her twice in her apartment in 2010.
Her attorney, Carrie Goldberg, called Weinstein’s freedom “a slap in the face to the victims.”
“Every second this guy is free sends a message to people everywhere that women can be raped without consequence,” Goldberg said.
Among those applauding the latest developments was model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, who went to authorities in 2015 after she said Weinstein made inappropriate contact with her in his Tribeca office.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has since come under fire for its decision not to prosecute the film financier, who is accused of raping actresses Asia Argento, Rose McGowan and Annabella Sciorra.
“I’m so emotional now, for all the victims,” Battilana Gutierrez told the Daily News. “I need to see justice now.”
With Shayna Jacobs, Brian Niemietz
