Multiple accusers are prepared to testify against Weinstein, 72, assistant district attorney Nicole Blumberg told a court hearing on Thursday.

However, the details of the indictment will not be disclosed until he is arraigned on the new charges. That may happen as soon as 18 September.

"We don't know anything," Weinstein's lawyer Arthur Aidala said outside court.

"We don't know what the exact accusations are, the exact locations are, what the timing is."

The indictment comes days after Weinstein underwent emergency heart surgery at a hospital in Manhattan to remove fluid on his heart and lungs.

He is recovering at Bellevue Hospital in New York and was not at Thursday's hearing.

Weinstein is facing a landmark retrial over his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women after it was overturned by New York's highest court in April.

It is tentatively scheduled to start on 12 November.

Prosecutors in the retrial revealed last week that they had begun presenting evidence to a grand jury of up to three additional allegations against him, dating back to the mid-2000s.

It is not known, however, whether the new charges involve any of the additional allegations.

Prosecutors have said they would seek to combine any new charges with the ones previously brought against him so that they could be tried together.

However, Weinstein's legal team have accused prosecutors of trying to bolster their original case with additional charges involving other accusers and have said they would not be ready to go to trial in November on new charges.

Meanwhile, prosecutors in the UK said last week they were dropping two charges of indecent assault that were brought against Weinstein in 2022 because there was "no longer a realistic prospect of conviction".

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Accusations from women relating to his alleged behaviour began emerging during the #MeToo movement in 2017.

Weinstein has always maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.

He had been serving a 23-year prison sentence when his conviction was overturned.

He was convicted in LA in 2022 of another rape. His 16-year sentence in that case still stands, but his lawyers launched an appeal against that verdict in June, claiming he did not get a fair trial.

A judge on Thursday granted a defence request to allow him to remain at Bellevue Hospital indefinitely following his heart surgery, rather than be returned to New York's Rikers Island jail complex.

Weinstein - who co-founded film and television production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Company - was once one of the most powerful people in Hollywood. He produced films such as Pulp Fiction and The Crying Game.