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The convicted rapist who once ran Hollywood believes the judge overseeing the 2020 proceedings overstepped in allowing unrelated witnesses to testify and potentially letting his behavior be discussed.
By Kevin Dolak
Attorneys representing convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein, the onetime titan of Hollywood whose trials in the public sphere and courtrooms on both U.S. coasts defined the #MeToo reckoning, will appear before an Albany judge today to argue that his 2020 conviction was not the result of a fair trial.
Weinstein will not appear in the Albany Court of Appeals on Wednesday as his attorneys argue for the dismissal of his 2020 conviction, which amounted to a watershed moment as the #MeToo movement saw women worldwide come forward across multiple industries alleging sexual and other misdeeds from powerful men. As his lawyers argue the appeal on Wednesday, Weinstein may watch via video feed from nearby Mohawk Valley Correctional Facility, where he is serving 23 years after the trial in question resulted in a guilty verdict in February 2020.
“What we’re arguing is that there should not be a different set of rules for an individual in society who becomes vilified,” said Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala, also referring to “the Weinstein rule that just applies to that little sliver of society that everyone decides to really hate.”
The once almighty mogul was convicted of a criminal sex act for forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and for rape in the third degree regarding an attack on an aspiring actress in 2013. Weinstein was acquitted of first-degree rape and two counts of predatory sexual assault at the 2020 trial. In January 2022, a second trial in L.A. concluded with a conviction by the jury of the rape and sexual assault of an Italian actor at a 2013 film festival. He was sentenced to 16 years on the West Coast, which is to be served consecutively to the earlier conviction in question today. At his L.A. sentencing, his attorneys indicated that the L.A. verdict will also be appealed.
Weinstein’s rights, they’re arguing today, were trampled during the sensational and closely watched 2020 trial. Their case argues that Judge James Burke, who oversaw the New York proceedings, should not have allowed three women whose allegations weren’t part of the rape case, to testify. The appeal will also argue that Weinstein’s potential testimony at his trial should never have been contingent on allowing prosecutors the opportunity to bring up some of the alleged bad behavior he’d become notorious for over the decades he held massive power as the head of Miramax Studios and The Weinstein Company.
Judge Burke’s decisions “overwhelmed” Weinstein’s trial with “excessive, random, and highly dubious prior bad act evidence” that swayed the verdict for the prosecution, lawyers for the former mogul will argue. Dozens of his alleged acts as a studio head—including an instance where he is accused of intentionally stranding a colleague in a foreign country—were on the table to be brought up before the jury were he to take the stand.
While rules around a judge allowing at trial the discussion of this sort of prior bad behavior not directly related to the allegations at hand varies by state, New York veers towards the more restrictive end of that spectrum. Weinstein ultimately declined to take the stand in his defense.
Affirming the New York verdict in 2022, a five-judge panel agreed unanimously that Burke “providently exercised’ his discretion while overseeing the trial. Weinstein and his team saw a flicker of hope during that process, as some of the five judges expressed some contempt for what Burke had allowed in 2020. “Let’s inflame the jury’s heart by telling them that he beat up his brother during a meeting. I just don’t see how there is a balance there on that,” Judge Sallie Manzanet-Daniels said at the time. Burke’s term expired at the end of 2022 and is now retired after he was not reappointed.
Weinstein’s lawyers are seeking a new trial for their client for the criminal sexual act charge; they argue that the rape charge can no longer be retried, as the conduct for which he was convicted is now outside the statute of limitations. A decision is not likely to come in at court today.
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