Harvey Weinstein will be retried in New York on rape and sexual offence charges after his 23-year conviction was overturned on appeal, Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said on Wednesday.
The disgraced 72-year old former Hollywood titan appeared in court in a wheelchair wearing a blue suit and according to reports did not speak in a brief hearing. Reports said Attorney Gloria Allred and Weinstein accuser Jessica Mann attended the hearing.
Prosecutors said there was nothing consensual about Weinstein’s conduct in reference to prior charges that led to the original conviction in February 2020, and told Judge Curtis Farber they would be proceeding.
Judge Farber remanded Weinstein in custody and indicated the retrial would take place sometime after the US Labor Day holiday, which falls on September 2. The next hearing in relation to the matter was set for May 29.
Weinstein was convicted of third-degree rape of Mann, and first-degree sexual assault for forcing oral sex on Mimi Haleyi (also known as Miriam Haley). It was a landmark ruling that added impetus to the snowballing #MeToo movement.
Last week New York Court of Appeals overturned the conviction by a 4-3 majority on the basis that the original trial wrongly admitted testimony of “prior bad acts” against women who were not complainants in the trial to prove he had a propensity to commit such acts.
Weinstein’s attorney Arthur Aidala welcomed the decision to retry and predicted a victorious outcome for this client. He said Weinstein would return to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan after he was admitted last weekend for multiple tests.
At the time Aidala described Weinstein as “somewhat of a train wreck, health-wise”.
Weinstein continues to serve a 16-year sentence for rape and other sexual offences passed down by a Los Angeles court in February 2023.
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