Harvey Weinstein expected in New York court after rape conviction overturned

Harvey Weinstein will be retried in New York, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in court on Wednesday (May 1), a week after the state’s highest court threw out his 2020 rape conviction.

Weinstein appeared in court before Judge Curtis Farber in a wheelchair, more than four years after his conviction was hailed as a milestone for the #MeToo movement, in which women accused hundreds of men in entertainment, media, politics and other fields of sexual misconduct.

“There was nothing consensual about this conduct,” prosecutor Nicole Blumberg said. “We believe in this case and will be retrying this case.”

Weinstein, 72, had been serving a 23-year sentence in a prison in upstate Rome, New York. He then was transferred to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan following last week’s order, according to his spokesperson, Juda Engelmayer.

Farber remanded Weinstein back into custody and said he expected to hold a new trial after the Labour Day holiday but did not set a firm date. Labour Day falls on Sept 2.

“There’s a tremendous sense of relief that we’re back here,” Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, said after the court hearing.

“We’re very confident that if he goes to trial, the only words we’ll hear at the end of trial are ‘not guilty,'” he added.

In February 2020, jurors in Manhattan convicted Weinstein of sexually assaulting former production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006 and of raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013. They are among more than 80 women who have accused him of sexual misconduct.

The conviction included charges of first-degree sexual assault and third-degree rape. Weinstein, who has denied having non-consensual sexual encounters with anyone, was acquitted on other charges.

A lawyer for one of Weinstein’s accusers, Gloria Allred, was present in the courtroom amid a gallery packed with reporters. She said she planned to address the media after the hearing.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was present in the courtroom but did not address reporters immediately after the hearing.

Last week, the New York Court of Appeals found that Judge James Burke, who presided over the trial, made a critical mistake by allowing three women to testify about alleged sexual assaults by Weinstein that were not part of the criminal charges against him. The court said this “prior bad acts” testimony violated his right to a fair trial.

Weinstein was also sentenced to 16 years following his separate rape trial in California. The two sentences cannot be served concurrently.

Burke is no longer on the bench, so any New York retrial would be before a different judge.

Weinstein co-founded the Miramax film studio, whose hit movies included Shakespeare in Love and Pulp Fiction. His own eponymous film studio filed for bankruptcy in March 2018.