Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein is due to appear in a New York court next week, the first step toward a possible retrial for the 72-year-old after his 2020 rape conviction was overturned.
Thursday in New York The Court of Appeal overturned the conviction of the former movie broker, who, prosecutors say, forced young actors to submit to his lascivious desires by dangling his ability to make or break their careers.
It was sentenced of forcibly performing oral sex on a television and film production assistant and third-degree rape for an assault on an aspiring actor in 2013.
The appeals court, in a 4-3 decision, overturned a 23-year prison sentence and ordered a new trial for Weinstein, saying the trial judge erred in letting three women testify about allegations that were not part of the charges and allowing questions about Weinstein’s history. “bad behavior” if he testified. He does not have.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office announced plans to proceed with a new trial. Prosecutors will work on the same indictment, but excluding the charges for which he was acquitted four years ago.
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“We will do everything in our power to retry this case and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement Friday, according to the Associated Press.
Weinstein remains imprisoned after also being convicted in a similar case in California.
But when could this potential new trial take place? Experts told The Associated Press the case won’t make it into a courtroom anytime soon, if ever. They said it was really up to the witnesses to decide whether they wanted to testify again.
“I think ultimately there won’t be a trial,” said Joshua Naftalis, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor now in private practice. “I don’t think he wants to go through another trial, and I don’t think the state wants to try him again.”
Naftalis said both sides could seek a solution such as a plea that would eliminate the need to put his accusers through the trauma of a second trial.
Deborah Tuerkheimer, a professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law and a former Manhattan assistant district attorney, said the possibility of a second trial “will depend on the preferences of the women who would have to testify again and endure the ordeal of a new trial.” “
“I think ultimately it’s going to come down to whether they feel like this is something that they want to do, that they’re capable of doing,” she said.
Jane Manning, director of the nonprofit Women’s Equal Justice, which provides advocacy services to sexual assault survivors, agrees that “the biggest question is whether both women are willing to testify again.” .
Lawyers say the road to a trial will include months-long battles among attorneys over what evidence and testimony will be allowed in a retrial.
A woman Weinstein sent to prison for sexual assault said Friday she plans to testify at a possible retirement.
Miriam Haley told reporters she was still processing the state Court of Appeals’ ruling and was considering many factors, including the trauma of having to prepare for another trial and relive at everything that happened to him again.
“It was traumatic and grueling and exhausting and everything in between,” she said at a news conference with her attorney, Gloria Allred. “I definitely don’t want to go through that again. But to keep going and do the right thing and because that’s what happened, I would consider it.”
Haley, a former “Project Runway” production assistant also known as Mimi Haleyi, testified at Weinstein’s trial that she repeatedly told Weinstein “no” when he attacked her in his apartment in July 2006, forcibly performing oral sex on him. In a 2020 civil trial, Haley said she was left with lingering horror, humiliation and pain.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said Friday that her office is analyzing the magnitude of the decision and how the state can ensure all women feel safe coming forward .
“I don’t want this to be a moment of stifling the environment that was created where we finally called out people who were abusing women in their presence,” Hochul said. “We don’t want to have a setback where there’s a sense that we now have to keep quiet, and that’s something we have to protect.”
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