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A New York Appeals Court overturned the rape conviction of disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein has been serving a 23-year prison sentence in New York following the 2020 conviction for committing a criminal sex act on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and third-degree rape against an aspiring actress in 2013.
The Appeals Court ruled in a 4-3 decision that the judge allowed testimony from women about allegations that were not part of the case. As a result, they determined that Weinstein did not receive a fair trial, and the only remedy was to hold a new trial.
“We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes because that testimony served no material non-propensity purpose,” the judges wrote.
“The court compounded that error when it ruled that defendant, who had no criminal history, could be cross examined about those allegations as well as numerous allegations of misconduct that portrayed defendant in a highly prejudicial light,” they continued.
Weinstein was also convicted of rape in California and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Once he is released from prison in New York, he will transferred to California to begin serving that sentence.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office said they plan to retry the case.