The highest court in New York this Thursday annulled the conviction that Harvey Weinstein obtained in 2020 for serious sexual crimes, giving an unexpected turn to the founding media case of the #MeToo era. The New York Court of Appeals found that the judge presiding over Weinstein’s case had made a crucial error by allowing prosecutors to call as witnesses a series of women who said the producer had assaulted them, but whose allegations were not part of the charges against them.
Given this new situation, it will depend on the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg – who is already in the middle of a trial against former President Donald Trump -, decide whether to request a new trial against Weinstein to determine his guilt or not. Although there is a possibility that the New York prosecutor’s office will try him again, Weinstein’s freedom is not in question, since in 2022 the mogul was sentenced to 16 years in prison in California ‘ class=”com-link” data-reactroot=””> 16 years in prison in California after being convicted of raping a woman at a Beverly Hills hotel.
Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, challenged the trial judge’s ruling and requested that his conviction be overturned. According to the former film producer’s defense, numerous women who were called to testify during the trial in New York spoke of sexual assaults that were not among the charges, but that helped establish a pattern of misconduct that conditioned the conviction. Aidala argued that Weinstein did not get a fair trial. “A significant prejudice was established”assured the lawyer.
In 2022, a New York appeals court dismissed those concerns and upheld his conviction. After a vigorous debate by the judges, the court established that the testimony of additional witnesses had been essential to demonstrate that the producer did not see his victims as “romantic couples or friends,” but that “his goal at all times was to position women in such a way that he could have sexual relations with them, and that whether the women consented or not was irrelevant to him.” However, in February of this year, New York’s highest court heard the producer’s latest appeal and seven of the judges, four of them women, debated whether the man had been treated fairly in court. After a vigorous study of the case, today the highest court decided, with a majority that included three judges, to annul the conviction and order a new trial.
“We conclude that the trial court wrongly admitted testimony of alleged prior sexual acts without charges against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes.“the judges wrote in their decision on Thursday. “No person accused of illegality may be tried on the basis of evidence of uncharged crimes that only serves to establish the accused’s propensity for criminal conduct,” the ruling continues.
It should be noted that the decision was made with a minimal majority: 4 to 3, with strong dissent. “Fundamental misunderstandings about sexual violence perpetrated by men known to the women they victimize and with significant power over them are on full display in the majority opinion,” Judge Madeline Singas wrote. Ashley Juddthe first actress to come forward with allegations against Weinstein, was reached by phone a few minutes after the court shared its decision and stood firm in her own judgment. “That is unfair to survivors,” he said of the ruling. “We still live in our truth. And we know what happened.”.
Outside the justice system, the evidence of Weinstein’s sexual misconduct is compelling. After The New York Times revealed allegations of abuse by the producer in 2017, nearly 100 women came forward with stories alleging manipulation by Weinstein. While the number of Weinstein’s alleged victims is overwhelming, few of them could be at the center of a criminal trial in New York. Many of the stories were about sexual harassment, which is a civil violation, not a criminal one. Others fell outside the statute of limitations. Manhattan prosecutors, pressured by the popularity of the case, They proceeded with a trial based on just two victims, who accused him of sexually assaulting them but who also admitted to having consensual sexual relations with him at other times., a combination that many experts say is too complicated to obtain convictions. The truth is that to prove his case against Weinstein, who denies all allegations of non-consensual sex, prosecutors had little concrete evidence.
Weinstein, who is currently in the Mohawk Correctional Center in Rome, New York, will be transferred to Los Angeles to serve a sentence for rape for which he was sentenced to 16 years in prison.