Hollywood producer Eric Weinberg was arrested by Los Angeles police on Tuesday after prosecutors filed 18 sexual abuse and assault charges against him.

The former ‘Scrubs’ co-executive producer was arrested by sex crimes detectives after the Los Angeles County prosecutor filed charges of rape, oral copulation, sexual assault, false imprisonment, assault to cause grievous bodily harm and six counts of violence. penetration by a foreign object, according to court records.

Weinberg was being held in lieu of $5 million bail Tuesday night.

More than half a dozen women have alleged over the past seven years that Weinberg lured them to his home, often under the guise of a photo shoot, before restraining and sexually assaulting them, police interviews and recordings obtained by The Times in July showed.

Los Angeles Police Department sex crimes investigators already arrested him on July 14 in connection with multiple sexual assaultsincluding rape, between 2012 and 2019. LAPD Capt. Kelly Muniz told The Times that the department has identified at least eight women Weinberg may have victimized.

The dates corresponding to the new charges were not accessible on Tuesday evening.

Micha Star Liberty, a Bay Area civil rights attorney who represents some of the women accusing Weinberg of abuse, said in a statement that she was “grateful that the district attorney acted to promote accountability.”

“The massive number of victims and the horrific impact inflicted on these women will not go unresolved,” she said. “We will not rest until justice is served.”

According to police and civil court records, Weinberg lured women from cafes, supermarkets and a Los Feliz pie shop to his Edgemont Street home.

After one encounter, a woman began using a Facebook group to warn about Weinberg’s alleged behavior, according to a statement filed in family court. At least twice prior to his July 14 arrest, Weinberg had been investigated by the LAPD on suspicion of sexual assault, booking of records and statements from the LAPD show.

During divorce and custody proceedings in October 2020, testimony was presented from three women who said they sexually assaulted them during photo shoots. His wife’s attorney at the time alleged that Weinberg also tried to pick up a teenage girl who attended their son’s high school and that the girl happened to know his son, according to a child custody file from 2020 in LA County Family Court.

Weinberg could not be reached by The Times for comment. But his attorney in the child custody case denied any wrongdoing on his part, calling the women’s statements a ‘blatant smear campaign’ with ‘unconscionable and unsubstantiated allegations’ designed to paint him in ‘the light’. the most awful”.

Detectives said Weinberg would approach women in their 20s and 30s and arrange photo shoots with them. Sometimes he talked about his career in Hollywood.

Weinberg worked on 92 episodes of “Scrubs” from 2001 to 2007 and wrote some of them. He was also producer of “Veronica’s Closet”, “Californication” and “Anger Management”, as well as “Men at Work”, which featured Danny Mastersonwho was also accused of sexually abusing several women.

The LAPD previously presented two rape investigations against Weinberg to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, which declined to prosecute Weinberg for incidents in April and August 2014, citing a lack of sufficient evidence, according to a statement from the office and LAPD statements. .

“It was not until detectives received a recent late-reported rape that they opened another investigation into Weinberg,” LAPD officials said in a statement to The Times. “It was…this newly reported crime that led detectives to identify the additional victims.”

Detectives have since presented several new cases, which are being reviewed with the district attorney’s office, authorities said.

“The investigation is in its early stages and is not over; however, eight victims have been identified,” police said, adding that investigators are working on leads and anticipating more cases.

According to an LAPD statement, detectives were aware that a Facebook group was created after the initial cases against Weinberg were dismissed, and investigators are reviewing social media posts to identify other possible victims.

Documents filed in a family law case between Weinberg and his ex-wife show allegations of three women of sexually violent encounters with him from 2014 to 2019. The dates of these incidents do not match other previously dismissed allegations by prosecutors. The Times does not identify victims of sexual assault without their consent.

A young woman has claimed she was 22 when she met him at a cafe, Republic of Pie, in North Hollywood.

“Eric raped and physically assaulted me in 2014 after he convinced me to come to his house for a photo shoot,” she said in a 2020 statement filed in a family law case involving Weinberg. The woman said Weinberg seemed professional, showing her photos he had taken of other women and telling her he was a father of three.

On April 29, 2014, they met at his home, she said. She agreed to strip down to her bra and underwear, and Weinberg told the woman she had to apply lotion ‘because it was good for the lighting,’ according to court records. .

“While Eric was putting lotion on my back, he started to take off my underwear…I never told Eric he could undress me, and I didn’t consent to my undressing. ‘he sticks his tongue out at me,’ the woman told a court. statement. “I didn’t know what was happening and I was terrified. I didn’t know how I was going to get away from him. I completely froze.

She said he kept taking pictures as he bedridden her and forced her to perform oral sex. He then strangled her “and squeezed so hard I thought I was going to pass out” and then he raped her, she alleged in the statement. Then, she said, he loaded the photos onto a USB drive and gave them to her.

In another affidavit, a 31-year-old North Hollywood storyboard artist said she met Weinberg at a Ralphs in February 2019. He asked her if she was a model and if her breasts were natural, a- she said, then offered to take pictures of herself after telling her about her family and her work on “Scrubs.”

She said when she came to his house, the photoshoot started in what appeared to be a girl’s bedroom. At first he was professional, but as the nude model and photographer moved to other locations, things took a violent turn, according to court documents. She alleged that he performed oral sex on her and shoved his penis down her throat, according to her sworn statement.

Nearly a year later, according to court records, a 30-year-old woman met Weinberg on OK Cupid and went for a glass of wine with him before heading to his house to listen to music, according to the statement from the woman filed in family court. case involving Weinberg. After making out in the living room, they went to the bedroom and began consensual undressing, but then he became aggressive, forcing her to perform sex acts while he restrained her, the woman said in the statement.

In the aftermath, she said in court papers, “he spent the hour trying to convince me that I had ‘misremembered’… [but] I knew I was not consenting.