The New York Supreme Court has overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on felony sex crime charges in a stunning reversal in the seminal case that spawned the #MeToo era.
In a 4-3 decision, the New York Court of Appeals found that the judge presiding over Mr. Weinstein’s case had made a critical error in allowing prosecutors to call as witnesses a number of women who said Mr. Weinstein had assaulted them – but whose allegations were not part of the charges against him.
According to the New York Times, Ashley Judd, the first actress to come forward with allegations against Weinstein, said that “this is unfair to the survivors. We are still living in our truth. And we know what happened.”
The overturning of Weinstein’s conviction and the holding of a new trial may seem like a sudden, shocking turn of events, the New York Times reports.
In public discourse, he is a fully disgraced figure: sentenced to lengthy prison terms in two cities, determined by the public testimony of nearly 100 alleged victims whose stories have been the cornerstone of the #MeToo movement.
But from a legal standpoint, his New York conviction was always controversial and his appeals always had a chance.
As the Guardian reports, the state appeals court’s decision reopens a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual assault by powerful figures – an era that began in 2017 with a flood of allegations against Weinstein.
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The court ordered a new trial. His accusers could again be forced to relive their trauma on the witness stand.
Weinstein, 72, is serving a 23-year sentence in a New York City prison after being convicted on charges of criminal sexual conduct for forcing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and third-degree rape for assaulting an aspiring actress in 2013.
He will remain in prison because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape 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.
