Harvey Weinstein appeals sex crimes conviction over accusers' testimony

Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood producer discovered responsible of two felony intercourse crimes final yr, appealed his conviction Monday, saying a number of ladies who had accused him of sexual assault ought to by no means have been allowed to testify.

Weinstein, 69, was sentenced to 23 years in jail in a case that relied closely on testimony from three ladies who spoke on the trial about Weinstein's assaults in opposition to them, though he was not charged for the habits they described.

Within the attraction, Weinstein's attorneys mentioned the ladies's testimony led the jury to concentrate on the lengthy historical past of allegations in opposition to their consumer quite than on the particular fees that had introduced him into the courtroom.

"Simply put, the prosecution tried Weinstein's character not his conduct," Weinstein's attorneys write within the attraction.

The long-expected attraction, filed in New York state Supreme Courtroom, marks the start of what's more likely to be a prolonged effort by Weinstein's authorized staff to vary his destiny.

The allegations in opposition to Weinstein ignited the #MeToo motion in 2017 after a number of ladies accused him of assault and harassment in an article in The New York Instances. That article and one in The New Yorker led to many others about Weinstein, and about sexual misconduct by highly effective males throughout a number of industries, bringing new scrutiny to habits that had lengthy been ignored.

Weinstein's trial confirmed one thing additional: A court docket system that appeared at instances to be ill-equipped to convey justice to the victims of intercourse crimes may convict a person who had been credibly accused by so many.

"This is no ordinary legal case - it was the break in the dam of decades of discrimination and unfairness," mentioned Karen Dunn, a accomplice on the Paul, Weiss legislation agency in New York Metropolis and an skilled trial lawyer. "It is hard to imagine, particularly on the facts of this case, a court wanting to be seen as unwinding the hard-fought progress of the #MeToo movement."

Weinstein has been accused of sexual misconduct by greater than 90 ladies. He faces further felony fees in Los Angeles stemming from two assaults that prosecutors there say befell in 2013.

At his sentencing, after he was convicted of a first-degree felony sexual act and third-degree rape, Weinstein in contrast the motion to the Crimson Scare of the Fifties and himself to a screenwriter who had been blacklisted and jailed.

One key to his prosecutors' technique was establishing that he had engaged in a sample of predatory habits, echoing an method that was profitable within the trial of actor and comic Invoice Cosby, who in 2018 was discovered responsible of sexual assault.

Along with arguing that the three ladies's testimony had unfairly influenced the jury, Weinstein's attorneys mentioned within the almost 170-page attraction that there have been different causes to overturn the conviction.

They took difficulty with the admission of testimony from a fourth girl, actress Annabella Sciorra, who testified that Weinstein had raped her within the early Nineteen Nineties, proof that jurors used to find out whether or not he had dedicated acts of predatory sexual assault. Jurors discovered him not responsible of two counts of that crime.

Amongst their different arguments is that an autobiographical guide by one of many jurors in his trial signifies that she was biased in opposition to him and that professional testimony from a social psychologist that the protection had hoped to name was inappropriately barred.

Prosecutors will reply the arguments Weinstein's attorneys have produced of their attraction, and a choose will finally decide whether or not they have advantage.

"We will respond in our brief to the court," mentioned Danny Frost, a spokesman for the Manhattan district lawyer.

Even when the attraction is profitable, Weinstein is unlikely to be launched from jail anytime quickly.

A lot of Weinstein's authorized maneuvering since he went on trial has failed. Within the midst of the case, his attorneys argued that the choose was biased and tried to have him eliminated, solely to be rejected. After the jury discovered Weinstein responsible, one among his attorneys requested that he be saved free on bail, partly due to his ailing well being. The request was not granted.

After being sentenced, Weinstein was hospitalized with chest pains and later examined optimistic for the coronavirus.