NEW YORK.- It is expected that Harvey Weinstein appear before a judge on Wednesday afternoon in the same tribunal from the city of NY where the former president Donald Trump is being judged.
Weinstein is awaiting a new trial on rape charges after his 2020 conviction was overturned. Wednesday’s court hearing will address several legal issues related to the upcoming trial, which is tentatively scheduled for after Labor Day, which is commemorated in September in the United States.
Weinstein’s original trial took place in the same courtroom where Trump is now on trial, but it is unlikely that the two will ever bump into each other. Weinstein is in custody and will be taken to and from the courtroom in custody. He will appear in a courtroom on a different floor than where Trump is currently being tried.
Caso Weinstein
Weinstein was convicted of rape for attacking Jessica Mann, an aspiring actress, and of sexually assaulting Miriam Haley, a former television and film production assistant.
But last month, New York’s highest court overturned those convictions after determining that the trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on accusations from other women who were not part of the case. Weinstein, 72, claims any sexual encounters were consensual.
The New York ruling reopened a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual abuse by powerful figures. The #MeToo era began in 2017 with an avalanche of accusations against Weinstein.
Last week, prosecutors asked Judge Curtis Farber to remind Weinstein’s lawyers not to argue or disparage potential witnesses in public before the retrial.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office argued that Weinstein’s lead attorney, Arthur Aidala, made statements intended to intimidate Haley earlier this month.
Speaking outside court on May 1, Aidala said Haley lied to the jury about her motive for coming forward and that her team planned an aggressive cross-examination on the issue “if she dares to come and show her face here.”
Aidala did not respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday about Bragg’s request.
Haley has said she doesn’t want to go through the trauma of testifying again, “but for the sake of moving forward and doing the right thing and because that’s what happened, I would consider it.”
His attorney, Gloria Allred, declined to comment until after he attends Wednesday’s proceedings.
The Associated Press generally does not identify people who allege they were sexually assaulted unless they consent to being named, as Haley and Mann have done.
Weinstein, who was serving a 23-year sentence in New York, was also sentenced in Los Angeles in 2022 for another violation to 16 years in prison in California.
Source: AP
