NY Appeals Court overturns Weinstein’s conviction for rape; new trial ordered

NEW YORK (AP) — New York's highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein 's 2020 rape conviction, reversing a landmark ruling of the #MeToo era in determining the trial judge improperly allowed women to testify about allegations against the ex-movie mogul that weren't part of the case.

Weinstein, 72, will remain imprisoned because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape. But the New York ruling reopens a painful chapter in America's reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures — an era that began in 2017 with a flood of allegations against Weinstein.

The Manhattan district attorney's office signaled its intention to retry Weinstein, and his accusers could again be forced to retell their stories on the witness stand.

The state Court of Appeals overturned Weinstein's 23-year sentence in a 4-3 decision, finding that "the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes." The court's majority called this "an abuse of judicial discretion."

In a stinging dissent, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the Court of Appeals was continuing a "disturbing trend of overturning juries' guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence."

Weinstein has been in a New York prison since his conviction on charges of criminal sex acts for forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and rape in the third degree for an attack on an aspiring actress in 2013. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison in the Los Angeles case.

Weinstein lawyer Arthur Aidala called the Court of Appeals ruling "a tremendous victory for every criminal defendant in the state of New York."

The Manhattan district attorney's office said in a statement it would "do everything in our power to retry this case."