Warning: This article can affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know a person affected by this.
Five years after Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of rape and transported in prison to handcuffs, the former film’s magnate returns Tuesday in a Palais de Justice in Manhattan for a new trial covering many of the same allegations – more one that has never been tried before.
Weinstein pushed for a date of new previous trial, as he regularly entered the hospital for a variety of health problems
Now 73 years old, he is very far from the time when he was one of the most powerful men in cinema.
The film Mogul Miramax, then Weinstein Company, won 81 Oscar prize nominations from 1988, including six winners of the best film. While his intimidation behavior was a police secret in the film industry, a pair of presentations published by the interval days by the New York Times and the New Yorker in 2017 saw several allegations of women of sexual assault and, in some cases, rape.
The articles, as well as a tweet of actress Alyssa Milano a few days later, galvanized a #MeToo movement and encouraged more women to make public with allegations of predatory behavior on the part of men through industries.
The highest New York Court canceled the conviction of Harvey Weinstein in 2020 for sexual assault and rape, a historic decision of the #MeToo movement. Andrew Chang explains how the accusation knew that she was taking a bet and where this bet went bad.
In a few days, Weinstein was dismissed from his company and his wife initiated the divorce procedure. A great jury in New York accused it in spring 2018, the first step towards his criminal trial.
For the new trial, Weinstein pleaded not guilty and denies having raped or sexually assaulted anyone. Prosecutors are not allowed to try Weinstein again on certain charges that he was acquitted during his first trial.
Why is there a new trial?
The State Court of Appeal rejected Weinstein’s convictions and a sentence of 23 years in prison and ordered a new trial after concluding that the original was inclined by “flagrant” judicial decisions and a detrimental testimony.
In a decision 4-3, the court said that James Burke then denied a fully fair trial by letting three women testify to the allegations that were not part of the case.
The court described the allegations against Weinstein as “appalling, shameful and repugnant conduct”, but warned that “destroying the character of a defendant under the cover of prosecutor’s needs” did not justify certain proofs and testimonies of trial.
What is the new burden he faces?
Weinstein faces allegations not understood during the first trial, the result of a criminal sex chief for having allegedly forced oral sex on a woman in a Manhattan hotel in 2006.
The prosecutors said that the woman had presented them only a few days before the start of the first Weinstein trial but was not part of this case. They said they had not continued the allegations of women after the condemnation of Weinstein, but revisited them and obtained a new indictment after the first verdict.
Weinstein lawyers argue that prosecutors should not have waited for almost five years to carry the additional load.
What allegations will be heard again?
Weinstein is taken up for two accusations of his initial trial.
He faces a leader of criminal sex for having allegedly interpreted oral sex on a film and television production assistant.
Miriam Haley, a former production assistant on the product by Weinstein Project tracktestified during the trial in 2020 that he had pushed it on a bed in his apartment in Manhattan in June 2006 and forced oral sex on her, not discouraged by her kicks and her pleas.
Haley, who was also called Mimi Haleyi, admitted that she had stayed in touch with Weinstein, exchanged warm messages with him and accepted an invitation in his hotel room two weeks after the alleged assault, where he pulled her in bed for sex. Under the New York law applicable at the time, Weinstein was not accused of rape in connection with Haley’s allegations.
Weinstein also faces a third degree rape for allegedly assaulted a Jessica Mann in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013.
Mann, who said he saw Weinstein as a figure of “pseudo-father” when she was pursuing an acting career after a brutal education, said during the trial in 2020 that he trapped her in the hotel room, ordered her to undress while he was taking advantage of her and then raped her. She alleges that Weinstein raped her again eight months later in a hotel in Beverly Hills, where she worked as a hairdresser.
Mann also stayed in touch with Weinstein after the alleged assault, testifying that she sent him flattering emails, because “her ego was so fragile,” she said, and that “made me feel safe, adore it in this sense”.
The Associated Press generally does not identify people alleging sexual assault unless it consented to be named, as Haley and Mann did.
If Weinstein is acquitted during this trial, would he go free?
Last year, Weinstein rejected an extradition request from California, where he was found guilty of rape, forced oral copulation and another count of sexual misconduct involving a woman known as Jane Doe 1, after a two -month trial in Los Angeles at the end of 2022.
He was sentenced at the start of the following year to 16 years in prison, which was to start after New York punishment was purged.
Weinstein’s condemnation in California is subject to an examination, but the legal experts said following the reversal of the New York verdict, which the two states had rules that differ in the testimonies on previous acts and behavior.
If you are in danger or to immediate fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911. For support in your region, you can search for crisis and local services via the Database of the end of violence of Canada.
