NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein ‘s #MeToo retrial subsequent month will largely be an abridged model of the unique, with one huge addition: a cost based mostly on an allegation from a lady who wasn’t part of the primary case.
Simply how the reprise of the disgraced film mogul’s prosecution performs out ought to come into deal with Wednesday, when a choose is ready to concern rulings on a wide range of points, together with the scope of accuser testimony and potential knowledgeable witnesses.
Weinstein, 72, is anticipated to be in court docket when Decide Curtis Farber guidelines.
His retrial is scheduled to begin April 15 in state court docket in Manhattan — almost a 12 months after New York’s highest court docket overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault fees.
At his final court docket look, in January, Weinstein implored Farber to begin the retrial sooner. He informed the choose “I don’t know how much longer I can hold on” with most cancers, coronary heart points and harsh situations at New York Metropolis’s Rikers Island jail complicated, the place he’s locked up.
Weinstein is being retried on fees 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 pressured oral intercourse on a unique lady at a Manhattan lodge in 2006.
Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg’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 Court docket of Appeals threw out his conviction final April.
Farber dominated in October to mix the brand new indictment and current fees 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 may use it later if his conviction had been reversed.
Weinstein has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anybody.
Final month, Weinstein added Jennifer Bonjean, a lawyer who has represented Invoice Cosby and R. Kelly, to a authorized crew that features protection attorneys Arthur Aidala, Diana Fabi Samson and former choose Barry Kamins.
In vacating Weinstein’s conviction, the Court docket of Appeals dominated that the trial choose, James M. Burke, unfairly allowed testimony in opposition to him based mostly on allegations from different ladies that weren’t a part of the case. Burke is now not on the bench and such testimony will not be a part of the retrial.
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.
