(New York) New York State’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, ruling that the judge in the historic metoo trial had prejudiced the ex-movie mogul with rulings inappropriate, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that were not part of the case.
Posted at 9:33 a.m.
Michael Sisak
Associated Press
The state appeals court’s ruling reopens a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures ― an era that began in 2017 with a flood of allegations against Weinstein. The court ordered a new trial. His accusers could once again be forced to relive their traumas on the witness stand.
The 72-year-old has been serving a 23-year sentence in a New York prison since his conviction for criminal sexual conduct, forcibly performing cunnilingus on a television and film production assistant in 2006, and third-degree rape for assaulting an aspiring actress in 2013.
He will remain in prison, as he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Weinstein was acquitted in Los Angeles of charges relating to one of the women who testified in New York.
Weinstein’s lawyers argued that Judge James Burke’s rulings in favor of the prosecution turned the trial into “1-800-GET-HARVEY.”
The overturning of Weinstein’s conviction is the second major setback for the metoo movement in the past two years, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a Pennsylvania court’s ruling overturn comedian Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction.
Weinstein’s conviction remained pending for more than four years, hailed by activists and advocates as a milestone but dissected just as quickly by his lawyers and, later, by the appeals court when it heard arguments on the issue in February.
