NEW YORK (AP) — 5 years after Harvey Weinstein was convicted of rape and hauled to jail in handcuffs, the previous film mogul returns to a Manhattan courthouse Tuesday for a brand new trial masking the exact same allegations — plus one which hasn’t been tried earlier than.
It isn’t double jeopardy, however moderately a authorized redo after a New York appeals court docket overturned the landmark #MeToo verdict a yr in the past.
The state’s Court docket of Appeals threw out Weinstein’s convictions and 23-year jail sentence and ordered a brand new trial after discovering that the unique one was tilted by “egregious” judicial rulings and prejudicial testimony.
Jury choice might take a number of days. Opening statements and the beginning of testimony are anticipated subsequent week. Choose Curtis Farber mentioned that along with 12 jurors, six alternates shall be picked. Prosecutors count on the retrial to final a month.
Right here’s what you might want to learn about Weinstein’s retrial:
How is that this trial completely different from 2020?
In some methods, the brand new trial shall be two trials spliced into one.
Weinstein, 73, faces fees involving two ladies from his authentic trial in 2020, Jessica Mann and Miriam Haley, and he’s being tried for the primary time on an allegation from a lady who wasn’t within the first case.
Weinstein has pleaded not responsible and denies that he raped or sexually assaulted anybody. Prosecutors are usually not allowed to retry Weinstein on sure counts that he was acquitted of throughout his first trial, together with fees of predatory sexual assault and one depend of first-degree rape.
The judicial reboot will play out in a special local weather than Weinstein’s first trial, which drew intense media consideration and noticed protesters chanting “rapist” exterior the courthouse.
The #MeToo motion, spawned by scores of allegations in 2017 towards the ex-studio boss, has advanced and ebbed over time, and Weinstein has since been convicted in a separate rape case in Los Angeles — a verdict he’s additionally interesting.
Whereas some stars are nonetheless going through a authorized reckoning for alleged sexual misconduct – like Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is ready to go to trial subsequent month – the drumbeat of allegations towards highly effective figures has abated from #MeToo’s early days.
What’s Weinstein accused of?
Weinstein is being retried on two fees from his authentic trial: one depend of legal intercourse act for allegedly forcibly performing oral intercourse on a film and TV manufacturing assistant in 2006 and one depend of third-degree rape for allegedly assaulting an aspiring actor in a Manhattan resort room in 2013.
Haley, a former manufacturing assistant on the Weinstein-produced “Project Runway,” testified on the 2020 trial that he pushed her onto a mattress at his Manhattan house in June 2006 and compelled oral intercourse on her, undeterred by her kicks and pleas of, “No, please don’t do this, I don’t want it.”
Haley, who has additionally passed by the title Mimi Haleyi, acknowledged that she stored in contact with Weinstein, exchanged heat messages with him, and accepted an invite to his resort room two weeks after the alleged assault, the place he pulled her into mattress for intercourse. Underneath New York legislation relevant on the time, Weinstein has not being charged with rape in reference to Haley’s allegations.
Mann, who mentioned she noticed Weinstein as a “pseudo father” determine as she pursued an appearing profession after a tough upbringing, testified on the 2020 trial that he trapped her in a resort room in March 2013, ordered her to undress as he loomed over her, after which raped her. She alleges that Weinstein raped her once more eight months later at a Beverly Hills resort, the place she labored as a hairdresser.
Mann additionally stored in contact with Weinstein after the alleged assault, testifying that she despatched him flattering emails, as a result of “his ego was so fragile,” she mentioned, and it “made me feel safe, worshipping him in this sense.”
What’s the new cost he faces?
Along with Haley and Mann, Weinstein can be charged with one depend of legal intercourse act for allegedly forcing oral intercourse on a special lady at a Manhattan resort in 2006.
That lady, who was not a part of Weinstein’s first trial, has not been named publicly. The Related Press doesn’t typically establish folks alleging sexual assault except they consent to be named, as Haley and Mann have performed.
Prosecutors mentioned that the lady got here ahead to them simply days earlier than the beginning of Weinstein’s first trial however was not a part of that case. They mentioned they didn’t pursue the ladies’s allegations after Weinstein’s conviction, however revisited them and secured a brand new indictment after the primary verdict was thrown out.
Weinstein’s legal professionals contend that prosecutors should not have waited practically 5 years to deliver the extra cost.
Why is there a brand new trial?
New York’s highest court docket, the Court docket of Appeals, threw out Weinstein’s conviction in April 2024.
In a 4-3 resolution, the court docket mentioned then-Choose James Burke had denied Weinstein a completely truthful trial by letting three ladies testify about allegations that weren’t a part of the case and his resolution to let prosecutors confront Weinstein, if he had testified, over his historical past of brutish habits.
The court docket labeled the allegations towards Weinstein “appalling, shameful, repulsive conduct” however warned that “destroying a defendant’s character under the guise of prosecutorial need” didn’t justify some trial proof and testimony. Burke’s time period expired on the finish of 2022, and he’s not a decide.
In a dissenting opinion, Court docket of Appeals Choose Madeline Singas wrote that her colleagues within the majority have been persevering with a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.”
The ruling got here at “the expense and safety of women,” she wrote.
