Harvey Weinstein rape conviction overturned
Ruling in movie mogul’s case marks reversal of case that formed linchpin of the Metoo movement
Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction has been overturned after New York’s highest court ruled some of his accusers should not have been allowed to testify. The ruling marked a stunning reversal of the case that formed the cornerstone of the Metoo movement. The court said the former producer, 72, was denied a fair trial because women whose claims did not feature in his indictment were permitted to share their accounts on the witness stand.
HARVEY WEINSTEIN’S 2020 rape conviction has been overturned after New York’s highest court ruled some of his accusers should not have been allowed to testify.
The ruling by the New York Court of Appeals marked a stunning reversal of the case that formed the cornerstone of the Metoo movement.
It said the one-time Hollywood titan, 72, was denied a fair trial because women whose claims did not feature in his indictment were permitted to share their accounts on the witness stand.
It was one of a series of “egregious errors” the Court of Appeals said had been made by the presiding judge, Justice
James Burke, which deprived the media mogul of his due process. Weinstein’s lawyers hailed the ruling as a “tremendous victory for every criminal defendant in the state of New York”.
Many of Weinstein’s accusers expressed disbelief at the move, condemning the ruling as a major setback for the pursuit of justice for sexual assault survivors.
Ashley Judd, one of Weinstein’s earliest public accusers, said the ruling was “unfair to survivors”.
“We still live in our truth,” the actor told The New York Times. “And we know what happened.”
Weinstein had been serving a 23-year sentence for his conviction for a criminal sex act and rape in the third degree.
He faces no immediate prospect of release, since he was sentenced to a further 16 years in Los Angeles last year after being convicted of raping an actress in California in 2013.
Following the ruling, the Manhattan district attorney’s office pledged to “do everything in our power to retry this case”. Weinstein’s prosecution centred on allegations that he raped Jessica Mann, an aspiring actress, in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013, and forced oral
sex on Mimi Haleyi, a British production assistant, at his apartment in 2006.
He was acquitted on the most serious charges – two counts of predatory sexual assault – which carried potential life sentences. Those charges hinged on the testimony of Sopranos star Annabella Sciorra, who said Weinstein raped her and forcibly performed oral sex on her in her own home in the mid-1990s.
In addition to Sciorra, aspiring actors Dawn Dunning and Tarale Wulff, and the model and screenwriter Lauren Young, testified in support of Mann and Haleyi.
The disgraced Hollywood producer first appealed against his conviction in 2021, arguing Judge Burke had allowed “excessive, random, and highly dubious prior bad act evidence”.
Weinstein’s conviction was upheld on the first round of appeals in 2022.
But yesterday, New York’s highest court agreed with Weinstein’s claims that he was judged “on irrelevant, prejudicial, and untested allegations of prior bad acts”.
“We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants,” the court said in a 4-3 ruling.
Judge Burke “compounded that error” when he ruled that “[Weinstein], who had no criminal history, could be cross examined about those allegations” in a way that portrayed him “in a highly prejudicial light,” it added.
In a stinging dissent, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the majority was “whitewashing the facts to conform to a
‘We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of prior sexual acts’
he-said/she-said narrative”.
Judge Singas said that New York’s highest court was continuing a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence”.
“The majority’s determination perpetuates outdated notions of sexual violence and allows predators to escape accountability,” she wrote.