Harvey Weinstein, who was once accused of the #MeToo trail, is scheduled to appear in court once more.
A judge will determine when Weinstein’s retrial will begin, and whether it will include an allegation involving a woman who wasn’t in the original case. The 72-year-old wants the extra charge thrown out. He has argued that the prosecution only used it to defend their case against a third accuser, using his attorneys.
His rape and sexual assault conviction in New York’s highest court was overturned after the highest court overturned it in the case involving two women in 2020. Judge Curtis Farber is anticipated to make a decision regarding the trial date, the extra charge, and other matters. Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, has suggested the trial is soon in “the interest of humanity” while citing the ex studio boss ‘ declining health.
In a border wall fraud trial that is scheduled to begin on March 4, Aidala is representing conservative strategist Steve Bannon. According to Aidala, “they know that Mr. Weinstein is a dead man in the state of New York right now,” he claimed in court last week. He pleaded to prosecutors: “Can I try this dying man’s case first”?
Weinstein recently required emergency heart surgery after being diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia. He is facing a second trial on charges that he sexually assaulted a potential actor in 2013 and that he forcibly abused an assistant producer for a film and TV in 2006? The additional charge alleges that he allegedly compelled another woman to have oral sex in a Manhattan hotel in 2006 under additional circumstances.
The woman was not a part of Weinstein’s first trial, according to court documents from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which claimed she had been a witness to the prosecution just days before the start of the case. After the state’s Court of Appeals overturned his conviction in April, the prosecution claimed they had reexamined the allegations and obtained a new indictment.
In October, Judge Faber decided to combine the new indictment with the already-arrested charges in one trial. By putting off the additional charge for almost five years, Weinstein’s attorneys contend that prosecutors have prejudiced him. They suggested they make the decision to leave the claim out of his first trial so they could use it if his conviction was overturned.
Prosecutors called the suggestion “absurd”. In their court filing, Weinstein was quoted as saying that he “would likely have characterized that timing as a vindictive and gratuitous pile-on.” The office of the New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg claimed that the previously uncharged allegation “required a sensitive investigation” and serious thought before seeking an indictment.
Weinstein became the most well-known figure in the #MeToo movement in 2017, when women exposed his behavior in public. According to the testimony of production assistant Miriam Haley and former actress Jessica Mann, Weinstein was found guilty of first-degree criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape in 2020.
After an appellate court found that the judge had prejudiced the jury by allowing women to testify about sexual harassment and assault allegations that weren’t relevant to the hearing, the convictions were overturned last year. The former Miramax boss is currently serving a 16-year sentence after being found guilty of three counts of sexual assault in a Los Angeles court in 2022, but even if the retrial results in an acquittal, he won’t be free. While awaiting the retrial, he has been kept in custody in the Rikers Island jail complex in New York.
Like this story? For more of the latest showbiz news and gossip, follow Mirror Celebs on TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTubeand Threads.
Source: Mirror
Leave a Reply