Rose McGowan to stand trial in January for Va. drug possession case

Jayme Deerwester | USA TODAY

Actress Rose McGowan will stand trial in January on a felony drug charge, according to court documents.

Her two-day jury trial is set for Jan. 15-16.

McGowan, 44, was indicted by a grand jury on a class-5 felony charge of possession of a controlled substance Monday.

WTOP radio reported that McGowan, who last appeared at a probable-cause hearing in May, was not present in the courtroom for either of this week's hearings in Loudoun County, Virginia, located about an hour northwest of Washington.

In November, the actress-turned-activist, who resides in California, pleaded not guilty after cocaine was found in a wallet belonging to her that was left behind on her January 2017 flight to Washington for the Women's March.

Actress Rose McGowan booked for felony On Tuesday, actress Rose McGowan turned herself in to police for felony possession of a controlled substance.

However, her arrest warrant didn't come to light for another nine months — and not until after the publication of two bombshell reports detailing decades of sexual misconduct by disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, whom McGowan has accused of raping her.

The timing led McGowan's lawyers to suggest the drugs may have been planted by agents hired by Weinstein to discredit her for making sexual assault accusations against him. Days before her Nov. 14 arraignment, The New Yorker published a story by Ronan Farrow detailing how Weinstein employed former Israeli intelligence officers to keep tabs on his accusers and the journalists who might be talking to them.

Weinstein, who was charged last month with rape and a criminal sex act against two other women, has consistently denied he had non-consensual relations with any of his accusers. However, he settled a lawsuit with McGowan in 1997.

Jim Hundley, McGowan's lead attorney in the Virginia case, did not immediately respond to USA TODAY's request for comment.



