By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on sex crimes was overturned by a New York appeals court on Thursday and ordered a new trial.
In their 4-3 decision, judges cited errors in the way the trial had been conducted, including admitting the testimony of women who were not part of the charges against him. “Order reversed and a new trial ordered,” the ruling said.
Weinstein, 72, was convicted in February 2020 of rape and sexual assault by a court in New York, and later sentenced to 23 years in prison.
He was subsequently convicted and sentenced by a Los Angeles court to an additional 16 years in prison for the rape of a woman in a Beverly Hills hotel room.
Bombshell allegations broke against the Academy Award winning producer in 2017, launching the #MeToo movement and paving the way for hundreds of women to fight back against sexual violence in the workplace.
“With today’s decision, this Court continues to thwart the steady gains survivors of sexual violence have fought for in our criminal justice system,” one of the judges who dissented with the decision said.
Weinstein lawyer Arthur Aidala called the Court of Appeals ruling “a tremendous victory for every criminal defendant in the state of New York.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said in a statement it would “do everything in our power to retry this case.”
Attorney Douglas H. Wigdor, who has represented eight Weinstein accusers including two witnesses at the New York criminal trial, called the ruling “a major step back in holding those accountable for acts of sexual violence.”
“Courts routinely admit evidence of other uncharged acts where they assist juries in understanding issues concerning the intent, modus operandi or scheme of the defendant. The jury was instructed on the relevance of this testimony and overturning the verdict is tragic in that it will require the victims to endure yet another trial,” Wigdor said in a statement.
Debra Katz, the prominent civil rights and #MeToo attorney who represented several Weinstein accusers, said her clients are “feeling gutted” by the ruling, but that she believed – and was telling them – that their testimony had changed the world.
People continue to come forward, people continue to support other victims who’ve reported sexual assault and violence, and I truly believe there’s no going back from that,” Katz said, predicting that Weinstein would be convicted again at a retrial.
She said accusers feel great comfort that Weinstein will remain behind bars.
The reversal of Weinstein’s conviction is the second major #MeToo setback in the last two years, after the US Supreme Court refused to her an appeal of a Pennsylvania court decision to throw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction.
With inputs from Associated Press.