A MANHATTAN grand jury has voted to indict disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein on rape and sex crime charges, prosecutors announced.

The move is the next step in efforts by New York prosecutors to bring the former Tinseltown powerbroker to trial for alleged sex crimes.

He was initially charged last week in what was hailed a landmark for the #MeToo movement, nearly eight months after his career imploded in a blaze of accusations of misconduct.

“This indictment brings the defendant another step closer to accountability for the crimes of violence with which he is now charged,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said on Wednesday.

“Our office will try this case not in the press, but in the courtroom where it belongs,” added Vance, who has been criticised for failing to prosecute Weinstein in a separate case three years ago.

“This investigation remains active and ongoing. We continue to urge additional survivors and others with relevant information to call us,” he added.

Weinstein’s defence lawyer announced earlier on Wednesday that his client would “follow the advice of his attorneys” and not testify before the grand jury, accusing Vance’s office of bowing to political pressure.

The 66-year-old twice-married father of five has been charged with rape in the first and third degrees, stemming from an attack on a woman in 2013, and a criminal sex act against another woman in 2004. Neither victim was named.

His lawyer says the rape allegation involves a woman with whom Weinstein “shared a 10-year consensual sexual relationship” that continued for some years after the alleged 2013 incident.

Brafman also claimed that an indictment was “inevitable due to the unfair political pressure being placed on Cy Vance to secure a conviction”.

“The defendant’s recent assault on the integrity of the survivors and the legal process is predictable. We are confident that when the jury hears the evidence, it will reject these attacks out of hand,” hit back Vance.

The former movie mogul posted bail at $1 million cash, surrendered his passport and has been fitted with a GPS monitoring device.

His career went down in flames in October over sexual assault allegations following explosive articles in The New York Times and New Yorker, which sparked a sexual harassment reckoning across the United States, in multiple industries

Earlier HarveyWeinstein will not testify before a grand jury reviewing rape and sex-assault allegations against him, according to a statement released by his representatives.

The New York Post reports that the disgraced movie mogul made the decision based “on the advice of his attorneys,” the statement says.

“After being unfairly denied access to critical information about this case that was needed to defend him before the grand jury, Mr. Weinstein’s attorneys decided that there was not sufficient time to properly prepare Mr. Weinstein,” the statement says.

Weinstein, 66, was charged on Friday in two alleged sex attacks in Manhattan in 2004 and 2013.

More than 80 women have publicly accused him of sexual misconduct from harassment to rape.

Weinstein, who has retained veteran criminal lawyer Benjamin Brafman, has denied engaging in any “non-consensual sexual conduct”.