Harvey Weinstein is facing the prospect of a new trial in New York following Labor Day. The former Hollywood mogul appeared in court in New York on Wednesday for the first time since his 2020 rape conviction was overturned. Judge Curtis Farber scheduled a May 29 hearing for discovery and for prosecutors to file a certificate of compliance. If the certificate is filed by that date, the judge anticipated that a trial would commence sometime after Labor Day.
Weinstein, who had been hospitalized in the days leading up to the hearing, was wheeled into the courtroom in a wheelchair, dressed in a blue suit with an American flag pin. He waved to the first row of attorneys as he was wheeled in and shook their hands as he was wheeled out. Accompanied by his attorney Arthur Aidala, Weinstein appeared before a full audience, which included Jessica Mann, a key witness in the first New York trial.
Aidala informed the judge that Weinstein has serious medical issues but emphasized that Weinstein remains mentally sharp, having read “hundreds and hundreds of books” in prison, and could still participate in his own defense. Assistant D.A. Nicole Blumberg requested that Weinstein be remanded in the case, expressing the prosecution’s desire to retry the case “as quickly as possible.” Blumberg asserted that the overturned conviction did not reflect on the strength of the case and reiterated the prosecution’s commitment to pursuing justice.
In addition to Mann, Gloria Allred, the lawyer representing Miriam Haley, who also brought claims against Weinstein in the trial, was seated in the first few rows of the courtroom, as was Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg. Weinstein had been held in a prison in upstate New York but was transferred to the city last week after the conviction was vacated, and then admitted to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for tests, where he remained under custody.
The New York State Court of Appeals overturned Weinstein’s conviction, finding that the judge in the New York County trial had prejudiced Weinstein with improper rulings, including allowing women to testify about allegations that were not part of the case. In the February 2020 trial, Weinstein was found guilty of criminal sexual assault in the first degree, based on the testimony of Haley, a former Project Runway production assistant, and rape in the third degree, based on the testimony of onetime aspiring actress Jessica Mann. He was acquitted on three other charges and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Weinstein was also convicted by a Los Angeles jury in 2022 on three counts — forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, and penetration by a foreign object — against Jane Doe No. 1, who has since been identified as former Russian model Evgeniya Chernyshova. The 16-year prison sentence from the Los Angeles trial still stands but could be impacted if New York prosecutors fail to secure a conviction in a retrial or if Weinstein succeeds on appeal in California.