Harvey Weinstein is extradited from New York to Los Angeles to face sex assault charges 

Convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein has touched down in Los Angeles on a private jet after being extradited from New York to face rape and sexual assault charges. 

The disgraced producer, 69, was spotted stepping off the jet at Burbank – the airport he once frequented regularly as a Hollywood A-lister – on Tuesday afternoon. 

It is the first time Weinstein has stepped foot in Los Angeles in two years since he was taken into custody in New York and sparked the #MeToo movement.

Weinstein, who was wearing a mask, brown sweater and pants, was not handcuffed as he emerged from the plane. 

Authorities appeared to help keep Weinstein – who now relies on a walker – upright as he walked down the stairs by holding onto a strap tied around his chest.     

Weinstein was taken from New York’s Wende Correctional Facility and put on a plane bound for the West Coast earlier in the day.

‘This morning at approximately 9.25 custody of Mr Harvey Weinstein was handed over to the appropriate officials for transport to the state of California per a court order,’ a New York Department of Corrections spokesman said. 

Prosecutors in Los Angeles have been seeking his transfer on charges of assaulting five women in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills between 2004 to 2013. 

Weinstein was charged in California in a criminal complaint before being indicted by a grand jury. 

He is facing 11 counts of rape and sexual assault, which could carry a maximum sentence of 140 years. 

Weinstein maintains his innocence and contends that any sexual activity was consensual. 

His attorneys had been fighting his extradition, claiming he shouldn’t be moved from his current prison in New York because of ongoing medical treatment.   

His lawyer did not disclose the conditions in open court during a hearing last month but prosecutors mentioned that he was seeking treatment from an eye doctor.  

‘We’re not trying to avoid a trial,’ his lawyer told the judge. ‘He will be ready to go to LA when the jury selection begins.’    

Erie County assistant district attorney Colleen Gable hit back, saying: ‘It’s Los Angeles. It’s not some remote outpost that doesn’t have medical care.

‘There is absolutely nothing in either doctor’s report that says this treatment can’t be done in Los Angeles. Los Angeles has some of the best medical care in the country and the world.’  

The judge rejected the arguments and ordered that he should be extradited this month.  

Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year sentence in New York’s Wende Correctional Facility after a jury found him guilty in March 2020 of rape and sexual assault. 

He was convicted of raping an aspiring actress in a New York City hotel room in 2013 and sexually assaulting a production assistant at his apartment in 2006 by forcibly performing oral sex on her.