NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein is due again in court docket Wednesday as a choose is ready to determine when the disgraced film mogul’s #MeToo retrial will begin and whether or not it should embrace an allegation involving a girl who wasn’t within the authentic case.
Weinstein, 72, needs the additional cost thrown out, arguing via legal professionals that Manhattan prosecutors solely introduced it to bolster their case with a 3rd accuser after New York’s highest court docket overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault expenses involving two girls.
Choose Curtis Farber is anticipated to rule on that and different issues, together with the trial date — a activity that is been difficult by an more and more crowded court docket calendar.
Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, is representing conservative strategist Steve Bannon in a border wall fraud trial that is set to start out March 4 earlier than a special Manhattan choose. In the meantime, Farber has a homicide trial in March.
Earlier than Bannon’s trial date was set final week, Aidala had instructed that Weinstein’s trial go first in “the interest of humanity,” citing the ex-studio boss’ declining well being.
Weinstein is being handled for quite a few medical circumstances, together with continual myeloid leukemia and diabetes.
“They know that Mr. Weinstein is dying of cancer and is an innocent man right now in the state of New York,” Aidala argued in court docket final week. He pleaded to prosecutors: “Can I try this dying man’s case first?”
Weinstein is being retried on expenses that he forcibly carried out oral intercourse on a film and TV manufacturing assistant in 2006 and raped an aspiring actor in 2013. The extra cost, filed final September, alleges he compelled oral intercourse on a special lady at a Manhattan resort in 2006.
The Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace mentioned in court docket papers that the girl, who has not been recognized publicly, got here ahead to prosecutors simply days earlier than the beginning of Weinstein’s first trial however was not a part of that case.
Prosecutors mentioned they didn’t pursue the ladies’s allegations after Weinstein was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in jail, however they revisited them and secured a brand new indictment after the state’s Courtroom of Appeals threw out his conviction final April.
Farber dominated in October to mix the brand new indictment and current expenses into one trial.
Weinstein’s legal professionals contend that prosecutors prejudiced him by ready almost 5 years to carry the extra cost, suggesting they’d elected to not embrace the allegation in his first trial so they might use it later if his conviction had been reversed.
Prosecutors known as that considering “absurd,” countering that Weinstein’s legal professionals would have additionally been outraged if he had been charged based mostly on the third lady’s allegation both throughout his first trial or instantly after his conviction.
Weinstein “would likely have characterized that timing as a vindictive and gratuitous pile-on,” prosecutors wrote in a court docket submitting final month.
Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg’s workplace mentioned the beforehand uncharged allegation “required a sensitive investigation” and severe contemplation earlier than searching for an indictment, partially as a result of there are not any eyewitnesses to the alleged assault and no scientific or different bodily proof.
Weinstein co-founded the movie and tv manufacturing firms Miramax and The Weinstein Firm and was as soon as probably the most highly effective folks in Hollywood, having produced movies resembling “Pulp Fiction” and “The Crying Game.”
In 2017, he grew to become essentially the most distinguished villain of the #MeToo motion, which erupted when girls started going public with accounts of his habits.
He has lengthy maintained that any sexual exercise was consensual.
In vacating Weinstein’s conviction, the Courtroom of Appeals dominated that the trial choose, James M. Burke, unfairly allowed testimony in opposition to him based mostly on allegations from different girls that weren’t a part of the case. Burke is not on the bench.
Weinstein was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of one other rape. His 16-year jail sentence in that case nonetheless stands, however his legal professionals appealed in June, arguing he didn’t get a good trial.
Weinstein has remained in custody in New York’s Rikers Island jail complicated, with occasional journeys to a hospital for medical remedy, whereas awaiting the retrial.
The Related Press doesn’t usually determine folks alleging sexual assault except they consent to be named.
