Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction upheld by New York court docket

A New York appeals court docket upheld Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction and 23-year jail sentence Thursday, rejecting the film mogul’s claims that the decide at his landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced him by permitting ladies to testify about allegations that weren’t a part of the legal case.

The ruling by a five-judge panel within the state’s intermediate appeals court docket affirmed one of many highest-profile verdicts up to now in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by highly effective figures — an period that started with a flood of allegations in opposition to Weinstein.

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Weinstein’s publicist, Juda Engelmayer, stated he’s reviewing his choices and can search to attraction the choice to the state’s highest court docket, the Court of Appeals.

“We are disappointed, but not surprised,” Engelmayer stated.

Weinstein, 70, was convicted in New York in February 2020 of a legal intercourse act for forcibly performing oral intercourse on a TV and movie manufacturing assistant in 2006 and raping an aspiring actress in 2013.

He was acquitted of rape and predatory sexual assault stemming from actor Annabella Sciorra’s allegations about an encounter within the mid-Nineteen Nineties. The Associated Press doesn’t usually establish individuals alleging sexual assault except they consent to be named; Sciorra has spoken publicly about her allegations.

Weinstein is jailed in California, the place he was extradited final yr and is awaiting trial on fees he assaulted 5 ladies in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills from 2004 to 2013.

In a 45-page ruling, the appellate court docket stated trial Judge James Burke correctly exercised his discretion in permitting prosecutors to bolster their case with testimony from three ladies who accused Weinstein of violating them however whose claims didn’t result in fees within the New York case.

The judges stated that though the amount of fabric, pertaining to twenty-eight alleged acts over 30 years, was “unquestionably large, and, at first blush, perhaps appears to be troublingly so,” Burke correctly exercised his discretion in weighing its relevance to the case.

The judges had been way more crucial throughout oral arguments in December, questioning quite a lot of Burke’s rulings, together with one which cleared the way in which for prosecutors to confront Weinstein with proof about different, unrelated misbehavior if he had testified.

The judges, echoing issues from Weinstein’s attorneys, stated on the time that the ruling had successfully muted his protection.

On Thursday, the panel additionally rejected Weinstein’s argument that Burke was incorrect in different methods: by permitting a girl who had written a novel involving predatory older males to stay on the jury, and by letting prosecutors have an knowledgeable on sufferer habits and rape myths testify. Burke didn’t enable testimony on related topics from protection consultants.

Weinstein’s conviction, heralded by activists and advocates as a milestone achievement, was dissected simply as rapidly by protection attorneys in search of to spring him from what might be the remainder of his life behind bars.

Rules on calling extra witnesses to testify about “prior bad acts” range by state and had been a problem in Bill Cosby’s profitable attraction of his sexual assault conviction in Pennsylvania.

New York’s guidelines, formed by a call in a 1901 poisoning case, are among the many extra restrictive.

At the December appeals court docket listening to, Weinstein’s attorneys argued the additional testimony went past what’s usually allowed — detailing motive, alternative, intent or a typical scheme or plan — and primarily put the ex-studio boss on trial for crimes he wasn’t charged with and hadn’t had a chance to defend himself in opposition to.

Burke’s ruling, which allowed prosecutors to make use of tales from Weinstein’s previous to assault his credibility, labored to forestall him from taking the witness stand, Weinstein lawyer Barry Kamins informed the appellate panel on the December listening to.

“The jury was overwhelmed by such prejudicial, bad evidence,” Kamins argued. “This was a trial of Harvey Weinstein’s character. The people were making him out to be a bad person.”