Harvey Weinstein to face new sexual assault trial in November
A new test for Harvey Weinstein may involve previously unheard-of allegations against the disgraced film producer, Manhattan prosecutors said on Friday. The trial, scheduled to begin on November 12, is the second attempt to prosecute Weinstein in New York after a sexual assault conviction in 2020. That belief is was overthrown earlier this year.after the appeals court ruled that by allowing women who were not directly involved in the allegations against Weinstein to testify, the trial court committed “serious errors.”
Weinstein, who is also convicted of rape in a separate trial in Los Angeles in 2022, was sentenced to 23 years in prison. in the case of New York and a 16 more in Californiawill be released after his New York term ends. Initially held at New York’s Mohawk Correctional Facility, the 72-year-old remains at the Bronx’s Rikers Island while awaiting retrial.
More 80 women have come forward with allegations against Harvey Weinstein as far back as 2017, but Weinstein’s first trial in New York focused on charges related to alleged assaults against two separate women. Four other women, all of whom made similar allegations against Weinstein, were also allowed to testify, leading to an order for a new trial.
When the conviction was overturned, prosecutors were informed that some of the evidence used in that trial non-reusable. But the Manhattan assistant district attorney Nicole Blumberg said in early July that prosecutors had now identified several new survivors of Weinstein’s alleged assaults and that they hoped to convene a grand jury to indict him.
“In 2020, there are women who are not ready to take the legal step,” Blumberg said. at the hearing on July 9. “Some women are now ready to move on.”
Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala called prosecutors’ efforts to expose new complaints a “delay tactic” to keep Weinstein at Rikers. “They already have a defendant and now they’re out there looking for a crime,” Aidala said, calling the search for other survivors “1-800-GET-HARVEY.”
Those potential new claims were not made clear on Friday, when Weinstein returned to court for a pretrial hearing. the New York Times reportAt the trial, the Judge Curtis Farber The state Supreme Court said he will review the evidence in hand and both sides will return for a hearing in September. “As we move toward the fall, I will begin asking for a trial date commitment,” Farber said, setting a tentative jury selection date of Nov. 12.
Even if Weinstein wins his case in New York, his conviction in California is unlikely to be similarly overturned. That state’s law (specifically, California Evidence Code section 1108) allows prosecutors in sex crimes cases to bring up allegations of past misconduct by a defendant, even if those claims are not part of the charge at trial.
“The legal issues identified by the New York Court of Appeals are not present in the Los Angeles County case,” a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said at the time. If Manhattan prosecutors are unsuccessful in this second trial, he is expected to be extradited to California to begin serving a 16-year prison sentence for crimes committed in that state.
