DISGRACED Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has arrived in court for his #MeToo retrial after his conviction was overturned last year.
The sickly 72-year-old is set to be retried on charges alleging he forcibly performed oral sex on an assistant in 2006 as well as the rape of an aspiring actor in 2013.
AFPThe sickly 72-year-old is set to be retried over his #MeToo trial[/caption]
AFPHarvey Weinstein has been spotted in court[/caption]
AFPWeinstein was last seen in October when he attended a court hearing[/caption]
New York judge Curtis Farber will lead the court proceedings today and is due to decide when Weinstein’s trial gets underway again.
Judge Farber will also announce if a fresh allegation involving a woman not included in the original case will be included.
The additional charge, first filed last September, accuses Weinstein of giving consensual oral sex to a different woman at a Manhattan hotel in 2006.
The film mogul and his team want this extra charge thrown out.
They are arguing Manhattan prosecutors only brought it up after New York’s highest court overturned the original 2020 rape conviction.
The uncharged allegation only came about a few days before the initial case started, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
It was reportedly left out of the initial trial because it required a sensitive investigation due to the lack of physical evidence or eyewitnesses to the alleged assault.
Weinstein has always pleaded not guilty to all allegations and has insisted his sexual encounters were always consensual.
Despite his pleas of innocence, a jury convicted Weinstein on February 24, 2020, of two criminal charges of rape and sexual assault.
He was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Years later, this verdict was overruled by the New York Court of Appeals.
They found Weinstein didn’t receive a fair trial as prosecutors called multiple women as witnesses who fired off accusations at Weinstein that had nothing to do with his charges.
The testimonies “destroyed” his past character and were “an abuse of judicial discretion,” the judges announced.
Prosecutors revisited the case and secured a new indictment which included the third alleged victim.
Judge Farber ruled to combine the new indictment and the existing charges into one overarching trial.
This latest court hearing is also separate to Weinstein’s 2022 Los Angeles conviction for rape and sexual assault.
He was sentenced to 16 years in jail in the globally known case and has been held in the notorious Rikers Island prison ever since.
The LA case, which made Weinstein a convicted sex offender, came nearly three years after his guilty New York verdict.
ReutersWeinstein has been hit with a number of health scares in recent months[/caption]
ReutersWeinstein is a convicted rapist after being found guilty in a separate case in 2022[/caption]
ReutersWeinstein in a court sketch from 2024[/caption]
His legal team have also launched an appeal against the verdict in June, claiming he was not fairly tried.
Weinstein’s latest case comes as the infamous Hollywood chief continues to battle with a range of serious health issues.
He has only left his cold new home behind bars on a handful of occasions in the past two years – mainly to visit hospital.
In October, it was announced he has been undergoing treatment in Rikers Island for Chronic myeloid leukemia – a type of cancer of the bone marrow.
A month earlier he was rushed into emergency heart surgery after a significant amount of fluid had built up in his lungs and heart.
The convicted rapist was left “near death” and wheelchair-bound.
Across the past 12 months he has also been hospitalised by Covid-19, bouts of double pneumonia and diabetes.
How Weinstein sparked the #MeToo movement
In October 2017, The New York Times published a bombshell article where numerous actresses alleged abuse at the hands of Harvey Weinstein.
Soon after, the actress Alyssa Milano asked women who have been sexually assaulted or harassed to share the words “Me Too” on social media.
The request quickly became a movement – with actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Lawrence, and Uma Thurman all sharing their harrowing stories.
It was later revealed that “Me Too” was first used by activity Tarana Burke in 2006 to describe her sexual assault.
The media firestorm led to many media executives losing their positions, alongside backlash over whether the accusations were being properly investigated.
Weinstein remained at the center of it all and was one of the few who was hit with criminal charges.
A top executive who produced films like Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love, and The Lord of the Rings, activist felt he was the perfect representation of how power and influence could be used for evil.
Weinstein’s health scares have reportedly forced a date for the trial to be
A date is yet to be formally announced due to an increasingly crowded court calendar for both Judge Farber and Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala.
Aidala argued that his client’s trial should be prioritized over others because of the disgraced film icon’s declining health.
He argued last week in court: “They know that Mr. Weinstein is dying of cancer and is an innocent man right now in the state of New York.
“Can I try this dying man’s case first?”
Aidala is also representing conservative strategist and former political advisor to Trump, Steve Bannon, in a fraud trial set to start on March 4.
Harvey Weinstein Trial Timeline
October 2017: The New York Times reports the film mogul, whose Miramax film company won its first Oscar in 1997 for The English Patient, has reached legal settlements with eight women who accused him of sexual harassment spanning over 30 years. He is fired from his company, his wife leaves him, and the #Metoo movement is born.
May 2018: Weinstein was arrested on charges of rape and a criminal sex act involving alleged assaults of two women.
June 2018: He pleads not guilty to both charges and a third charge. One of them is eventually dropped.
December 2019: Weinstein agrees to a $25 million settlement with a number of women who accused him of wrongdoing.
January 2020: The Los Angeles County District Attorney announces a criminal indictment against Weinstein.
That same month, Weinstein’s New York trial began.
February 2020: After five days of deliberation, a jury in New York convicted Weinstein of rape in the third degree and sexual assault in the first degree.
March 2020: Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years and transferred to maximum security prison.
October 2022: Weinstein’s Los Angeles trial begins.
December 2022: A jury convicts Weinstein of raping a model in 2013.
February 2023: Weinstein is sentenced to an additional 16 years in prison.
April 2024: His New York conviction is overturned by a New York Appeals Court, and a new trial is ordered.
July 2024: A judge sets Weinstein’s retrial for November 12.
September 2024: Prosecutors announced new charges against Weinstein.
January 2025: Weinstein appears back in court for a retrial on his 2020 New York case
APArthur Aidala, attorney for Harvey Weinstein, is asking for a third charge to be thrown out against his client[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
