Former film producer Harvey Weinstein appears in a Los Angeles court in October 2022.
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Étienne Laurent/Getty Images
Former film producer Harvey Weinstein appears in a Los Angeles court in October 2022.
Étienne Laurent/Getty Images
Editor’s note: This report includes descriptions of sexual assault.
New York State’s highest court Thursday morning overturned former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 sex crime conviction and ordered a new trial. Weinstein is serving a 23-year sentence in New York based on this conviction. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office told NPR it plans to retry the case.
The New York State Court of Appeals ruled 4-3 that Weinstein did not receive a fair trial, in part because the trial judge allowed testimony from women whose allegations were not part of this case. (In total, more than 100 women have made public allegations against Weinstein.)
Writing for the majority, Justice Jenny Rivera wrote in part in the decision: “We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of alleged, uncharged, prior sexual acts against persons other than the plaintiffs of the underlying crimes, because these testimonies had no irrelevant material value. -propensity purpose… The only evidence against the accused (Weinstein) was the testimony of the plaintiffs, and the result of the court’s decisions… was to enhance their credibility and diminish the reputation of the accused before the jury.
It will now be up to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. to launch a new trial against Weinstein. Bragg is currently involved in another high-profile case: the New York trial of former President Donald Trump, who has been indicted on 34 counts of first-degree falsifying business records. A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office told NPR in a written statement Thursday, “We will do everything in our power to retry this case and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault.”
Despite the New York court’s decision, another conviction against Weinstein is pending. In February 2023, a Los Angeles judge sentenced Weinstein to 16 years in prison for a separate rape and sexual assault conviction. This sentence must be served consecutively after the New York prison sentence. As of Thursday morning, Weinstein was being held in upstate New York at the Mohawk Correctional Center.
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