Less than a week after appeals judges surprisingly overturned Harvey Weinstein’s conviction for sex crimes, the former film mogul is scheduled to appear in court. A hearing in the Manhattan court has been scheduled for next Wednesday (May 1st), the public prosecutor’s office announced on Friday evening (local time), as US media consistently reported. Weinstein’s spokesman Juda Engelmayer announced that the 72-year-old had already been moved from a prison in northern New York state closer to the metropolis to Rikers Island. The announcement was available to the German Press Agency. Engelmayer explains that they are ready for a new trial if it comes to that. In this process there would be fewer accusations and Weinstein would have better cards.
An appeals court surprisingly overturned Weinstein’s historic 2020 conviction on Thursday. By a narrow majority, the panel found that procedural errors had been made in the process at the time.
At the time, there were two main allegations: Weinstein is said to have forced production assistant Mimi Haleyi to perform oral sex in 2006 and to have raped current hairdresser Jessica Mann in 2013. In fact, in the case that attracted worldwide attention, the public prosecutor’s office also relied on a number of witnesses who accused Weinstein of sexual assault, although they were not part of the indictment. This was intended to show that Weinstein’s actions followed a recurring pattern.
Despite Thursday’s decision, Weinstein remains in prison. In a second criminal trial in Los Angeles, which also involved sex crimes, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2023 – in addition to the 23 years in New York.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg must now decide whether to initiate a new case against Weinstein. A spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office said they would do “everything in our power to retry this case.”
Former production assistant Mimi Haleyi, one of the prosecution’s main witnesses, testified in tears in the New York trial and described Weinstein’s alleged abuses to the jury. At a joint news conference with her attorney Gloria Allred on Friday, Haleyi said she was considering testifying again at another trial, even though the experience had been “traumatizing” and “frightening.” The overturning of the verdict against Weinstein was “devastating”. The judges sent an “extremely discouraging” message for victims of sexual violence everywhere.
The first Weinstein trial marked a milestone in legal history. The case had the
