Harvey Weinstein appears in New York court for new rape trial

Prosecutors requested a new trial in September for Harvey Weinstein during a Manhattan court hearing, the disgraced movie mogul’s first appearance since his 2020 rape conviction was overturned by an appeals court last week.

Weinstein, dressed in a navy suit, was sitting in a wheelchair pushed by a court official when he entered the preliminary hearing.

Weinstein’s defense attorney, Arthur Aidala, said his client was attending the hearing even though the 72-year-old had been hospitalized shortly after his return to the city’s jail system on Friday from an upstate prison. . He said Weinstein, who has heart problems and diabetes, was undergoing unspecified tests because of his health problems.

Aidala said he had no concerns about his client’s mental abilities and described Weinstein as “sharp as a tack. As sharp as ever.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has said it is determined to retry the case against Weinstein. Legal experts say it may be a long road and it will come down to whether the women he is accused of assaulting were willing to testify again. One of the women, Mimi Haley, said Friday that she was still considering whether she would testify in a new trial.

Prosecutors said one of the accusers, Jessica Mann, who was in court Wednesday, is prepared to testify again and suggested setting a date after Labor Day for the new trial.

Aidala said his client wanted to prove his innocence: “It’s a new trial. It’s a new day.”

The once-powerful studio boss was also convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 for another rape and is still sentenced to another 16 years in prison in California.

In the New York case that has now been overturned, he was convicted of third-degree rape for an attack on aspiring actor Mann in 2013, and for forcing himself on Haley, a former “Project Runway” production assistant, in 2006. He pleaded not guilty and maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.

The Associated Press generally does not identify people who allege sexual assault unless they consent to be identified, as Haley and Mann have done.

Last Thursday, the New York Court of Appeals overturned his conviction in a 4-3 decision, erasing his 23-year prison sentence, after concluding that a trial judge allowed jurors to see and hear too much evidence that They were not directly related to the charges against him. .

The ruling shocked and disappointed women who celebrated historic achievements during the #MeToo era, a movement that ushered in a wave of sexual misconduct allegations in Hollywood and beyond.