Judge rules Harvey Weinstein sexual assault case can move forward

The sexual assault case against media mogul Harvey Weinstein will continue after a judge on Thursday denied a bid from Weinstein’s lawyers to throw the case out, according to multiple reports.

New York Judge James Burke, after a brief hearing, rejected arguments that the five outstanding charges against Weinstein should be dismissed, NPR reported.

{mosads}Weinstein’s lawyers had claimed that the case was “irreparably tainted” by allegations that a police detective acted improperly when interviewing women alleging sexual misconduct by Weinstein.

Assistant District Attorney Kevin Wilson said “there is no possibility” that the allegations against the police detective “in any way impaired the integrity of the grand jury or prejudiced the defendant,” according to CBS.

The hearing is now set for March.

Weinstein is accused of raping a woman in March 2013 and forcibly performing oral sex on another woman in 2006. He has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex.

He is charged with two counts of predatory sexual assault, one count of criminal sexual act in the first degree, and one count each of rape in the first and third degree, according to CBS.

Weinstein turned himself in to police in May and pleaded not guilty in June.

Manhattan prosecutors in October dropped one of the six initial charges after evidence surfaced that police detective Nicholas DiGaudio told a potential witness that “less is more” when she said Lucia Evans, one of the women accusing Weinstein of sexual misconduct, told her a different story at the time of the alleged assault.

Charges based on Evans’s allegations were dropped a year after her account was first published in The New Yorker. She told the magazine that Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex during a meeting in his office in 2004.

The New Yorker story included accounts from several other women who described allegations against Weinstein ranging from unwanted touching to rape.

The New York Times also detailed allegations from multiple women — including actresses Ashley Judd, Gwenyth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie — that Weinstein sexually harassed them.