{"id":5298,"date":"2024-04-26T11:32:19","date_gmt":"2024-04-26T11:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=5298"},"modified":"2024-04-26T11:32:19","modified_gmt":"2024-04-26T11:32:19","slug":"harvey-weinsteins-conviction-for-rape-in-2020-overturned-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=5298","title":{"rendered":"Harvey Weinstein\u2019s conviction for rape in 2020 overturned in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>3 Minute, 58 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>

Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein\u2019s 2020 rape conviction in New York has been overturned, on the basis that he did not receive a fair trial.<\/p>\n

The New York Court of Appeals said prosecutors in the pivotal #MeToo case called witnesses whose accusations were not part of the charges against him.<\/p>\n

The court said that meant he was unfairly tried for past behaviour, and ordered a new trial.<\/p>\n

Weinstein, 72, remains in prison. He was separately convicted of rape in LA.<\/p>\n

The Silence Breakers, a victims\u2019 group, called the reversal \u201cdisheartening and profoundly unjust\u201d, while lawyers for victims said the decision to retry was a \u201cleap backwards\u201d and \u201ctragic\u201d.<\/p>\n

Weinstein\u2019s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, hailed the reversal as a win for the legal system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still people who are very unpopular in our society, but we still have to apply the law fairly to them,\u201d Mr Aidala said at a news conference in New York City.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this courthouse behind us, at that trial, the law was not applied fairly to Harvey Weinstein.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with the New York Times, he said the decision was a victory \u201cfor every criminal defendant in the state of New York\u201d.<\/p>\n

The court reached a 4-3 ruling on Thursday, stating that the trial \u201cerroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision also said the trial judge compounded the error by letting Weinstein be cross-examined in a way that portrayed him in a \u201chighly prejudicial\u201d light.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial,\u201d the court found.<\/p>\n

Judge Madeline Singas, one of the dissenters, however said that with the decision, \u201cthis Court continues to thwart the steady gains survivors of sexual violence have fought for in our criminal justice system\u201d.<\/p>\n

Accusations against Weinstein began in 2017 and sparked the #MeToo movement, which exposed sexual abuse at the highest levels of the Hollywood film industry and beyond.<\/p>\n

He faced two trials. In New York, he was jailed for 23 years in 2020 for sexually assaulting a former production assistant in 2006, and raping an aspiring actress in 2013.<\/p>\n

He was last year sentenced in California to 16 years for raping an Italian model and actress in a Beverly Hills hotel in 2013. That conviction is not affected by the appeal decision in New York.<\/p>\n

Weinstein also faces two charges of indecent assault in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

He currently remains in prison at Mohawk Correctional Facility in New York state. He was previously extradited to LA to stand trial.<\/p>\n

It will now be up to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose predecessor Cyrus Vance brought the case, to decide whether to retry Weinstein in New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will do everything in our power to retry this case, and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault,\u201d said Emily Tuttle, a spokesperson for Mr Bragg.<\/p>\n

Mr Bragg\u2019s office is separately in the midst of a criminal hush-money trial against former president Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer who represented eight of Weinstein\u2019s accusers, said the decision was \u201ctragic\u201d and \u201ca major step back in holding those accountable for acts of sexual violence\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cCourts routinely admit evidence of other uncharged acts\u2026 the jury was instructed on the relevance of this testimony,\u201d he added. \u201cIt will require the victims to endure yet another trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lindsay Goldbrum, who represented six Harvey Weinstein victims, said the appeal court\u2019s criticism of the use of witnesses not directly connected to the charges was a \u201cleap backwards\u201d and damaging to future cases.<\/p>\n

She said that the witnesses had \u201cnothing to gain personally from participating in the trial. Their only goal was to give a voice to dozens of other women who suffered so much\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gloria Allred, who represented the key prosecution witness Mimi Haley, said that her client would consider testifying again in any new trial \u201ceven though the process of testifying was gruelling and retraumatising for Mimi\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Silence Breakers said that the decision \u201cdoes not diminish the validity of our experiences or our truth; it\u2019s merely a setback. We continue to stand strong and advocate for that change. We will continue to fight for justice for survivors everywhere\u201d.<\/p>\n

Weinstein co-founded the Miramax film studio, whose hits included Shakespeare in Love, which won best picture at the Academy Awards, and Pulp Fiction.<\/p>\n

Weinstein\u2019s films received more than 300 Oscar nominations and 81 statuettes.<\/p>\n

His own eponymous film studio filed for bankruptcy in March 2018.<\/p>\n

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Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein\u2019s 2020 rape conviction in New York has been overturned, on the basis that he did not receive a fair trial. The New York Court of… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}