Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on felony sex crime charges has been overturned. Weinstein was prosecuted by the state of New York and found guilty of two sexual assault/rape charges in February 2020. He’s been in custody of the state ever since. He was in Rikers for a while, then he was moved to a prison in Rome, New York. In the years since his conviction, the state of California prosecuted him for assaulting and raping women there as well, and California would be happy to take custody of Weinstein and house him at one of their most decrepit prisons. Which might actually happen, because of this overturned verdict:
New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on felony sex crime charges, a stunning reversal in the foundational case of the #MeToo era.
In a 4-3 decision, the New York Court of Appeals found that the trial judge who presided over Mr. Weinstein’s case had made a crucial mistake, allowing prosecutors to call as witnesses a series of women who said Mr. Weinstein had assaulted them — but whose accusations were not part of the charges against him.
Citing that decision and others it identified as errors, the appeals court determined that Mr. Weinstein, who as a movie producer had been one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, had not received a fair trial. The four judges in the majority wrote that Mr. Weinstein was not tried solely on the crimes he was charged with, but instead for much of his past behavior.
Now it will be up to the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg — already in the midst of a trial against former President Donald J. Trump — to decide whether to seek a retrial of Mr. Weinstein.
“It is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit untested allegations of nothing more than bad behavior that destroys a defendant’s character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges,” Judge Jenny Rivera wrote on behalf of the majority.
When reached by phone, Arthur Aidala, Mr. Weinstein’s lawyer, said, “This is not just a victory for Mr. Weinstein but for every criminal defendant in the state of New York, and we compliment the Court of Appeals for upholding the most basic principles that a criminal defendant should have in a trial.”
Basically, the appeals court says that the prosecution could not introduce evidence that Weinstein was a serial predator who abused, assaulted and raped over 100 women over the course of decades. I hope Alvin Bragg retries the case, honestly. Charge Weinstein with everything, bring in every single one of his victims and just redo the whole thing with even more charges. Or whatever – send him to California.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.