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New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, saying jurors in the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced the former movie mogul with “stunning” improper rulings, including a decision to allow women to testify about allegations they were not part of. case
“We conclude that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainant of the underlying offenses,” the court’s 4-3 decision said. “The solution to these rampant errors is a new experiment.”
The ruling by a state appeals court reopens a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures — one that began in 2017 with a flood of allegations against Weinstein. The court ordered a new trial. Their accusers may again be forced to relive their traumas on the witness stand.
A majority of the Court held that “it is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit allegations of bad conduct which destroy the defendant’s character but cast no more light on his credibility with respect to the criminal charges filed against him.”
In a scathing dissent, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that he was “whitewashing the facts to fit a he-said/she-told narrative” and said the appeals court “continues a disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts.” Cases involving sexual assault.”
“The majority’s decision perpetuates outdated notions of sexual violence and allows predators to escape accountability,” Singas wrote.
Still behind bars
Weinstein, 72, is serving a 23-year sentence in a New York prison on charges of criminal sex act and third-degree rape for forcing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006. An aspiring actress in 2013.
He will remain in prison in 2022 as he is convicted of another rape in Los Angeles and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Weinstein was acquitted in Los Angeles on charges involving one of the women who testified in New York.
Weinstein’s lawyers argued that Judge James Burke’s rulings in favor of the prosecution turned the trial into “1-800-GET-HARVEY.”
Weinstein’s guilty plea is the second major #MeToo setback in the past two years, after the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a Pennsylvania court’s decision to throw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction.
Weinstein’s conviction stood for more than four years, heralded by activists and lawyers as a landmark achievement, but quickly split when his lawyers and then an appeals court heard arguments on the matter in February.
The beginning of a movement
Behind such an Oscar winner are allegations against the once powerful and feared studio boss Weinstein Pulp Fiction And Shakespeare in Love, He started the #MeToo movement. Dozens of women came forward to accuse Weinstein, including famous actresses Ashley Judd and Uma Thurman. His New York trial received intense publicity, with protesters chanting “rapist” outside the courtroom.
Weinstein is being held at the Mohawk Correctional Facility, about 100 miles northwest of Albany in New York state.
He maintains his innocence. They argue that any sexual activity is consensual.
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