Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction has been overturned

Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction—part of a case that ushered in the #MeToo movement and led to a long overdue reckoning for predatory men in Hollywood and beyond—was overturned by a New York court today after it determined that the original trial was prejudiced against the disgraced producer and relied on “egregious” improper rulings, according to the Associated Press. Among these procedures was the decision to let women testify about allegations against Weinstein that weren’t officially part of the case.

“It is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit untested allegations of nothing more than bad behavior that destroys a defendant’s character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges lodged against them,” the court’s 4-3 majority said of the decision. As a result, Weinstein will face yet another trial.

Upsettingly, this also means Weinstein’s victims will once again have to recount painful testimony on the witness stand. In a sharp dissent, Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the court was “whitewashing the facts to conform to a he-said/she-said narrative… [continuing a] disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.” “The majority’s determination perpetuates outdated notions of sexual violence and allows predators to escape accountability,” the judge continued.

Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence in a medium security facility in Rome, New York, on charges of “forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and rape in the third degree for an attack on an aspiring actress in 2013" (via AP). He will remain imprisoned because he was also sentenced to an additional 16 years after he was convicted of another rape in Los Angeles in 2022.

Of course, Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, is celebrating the decision. “We all worked very hard and this is a tremendous victory for every criminal defendant in the state of New York,” he said. Things are different for Douglas H. Wigdor, who has represented eight of Weinstein’s accusers including two witnesses from the New York trial. “Today’s decision is a major step back in holding those accountable for acts of sexual violence,” he said. “Courts routinely admit evidence of other uncharged acts where they assist juries in understanding issues concerning the 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.”

A date for the new trial has not yet been set.