Harvey Weinstein’s Lawyers Argue to Overturn New York Rape Conviction – The Hollywood Reporter

Attorneys representing convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein, the one-time titan of Hollywood whose trials in the public sphere and courtrooms on both U.S. coasts defined the #MeToo reckoning, appeared before an Albany judge on Wednesday to argue that his 2020 conviction was not the result of a fair trial. 

Weinstein did not appear in the Albany Court of Appeals as his attorneys began to 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.

He may have watched 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 after a trial in Los Angeles Superior Court, 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 argued today, were trampled during the sensational and closely watched 2020 trial. They claimed that Justice 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 also argued 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. 

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 argued in court filings. 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. 

Weinstein ultimately declined to take the stand in his defense. 

Affirming the New York verdict in 2022, a five-judge panel of a state appeals court upheld the conviction and found 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 moved for a new trial for their client for the criminal sexual act charge; they argued 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 was not issued in court on Wednesday.

In a statement provided to ABC News when granted the appeal, Weinstein had said, “I am innocent of these charges, and I am so grateful to my attorneys for working hard and smart of this. Their hard work will help me prove my innocence in the end.”