Harvey Weinstein’s Rape Conviction Overturned by New York Appeals Court
A still from the FRONTLINE documentary "Weinstein."
Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction for sex crimes in a landmark case of the #MeToo era was overturned by a top New York court on Thursday.
The New York Court of Appeals ruled in a 4-3 decision that Weinstein did not receive a fair trial and was portrayed in a “highly prejudicial light” in the courtroom. The decision said that the trial court “erroneously” allowed women whose allegations against Weinstein were not a part of the charges to testify. The appeals court ordered a new trial.
The ruling was the latest development in a story FRONTLINE began covering in the 2018 documentary Weinstein. The film drew on firsthand accounts from several women and those who knew Weinstein to track how he allegedly sexually harassed and abused dozens of women over four decades. The documentary also examined the elaborate ways Weinstein and those around him tried to silence his accusers.
Zelda Perkins, who was one of Weinstein’s assistants from 1994 to 1998, said in the documentary, “I had no idea of the breadth and enormity of the story. I thought he just preyed on us. That was the most shocking thing, realizing he was a serious predator and he had been seriously abusing people with total impunity for all this time.”
On Thursday, Arthur Aidala, one of Weinstein’s lawyers, praised the court’s decision at a news conference outside Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building and said his team “knew that Harvey Weinstein did not get a fair trial.” Aidala said, “The Court of Appeals deserves a tremendous amount of credit for doing this based on the law — not based on opinion polls, not based on public popularity contests.” Weinstein has maintained that all his sexual encounters were consensual.
Weinstein was convicted in New York of criminal sexual assault in the first degree and rape in the third degree in February 2020, and later sentenced to 23 years in prison.
In a dissenting opinion, New York Appeals Court Judge Madeline Singas wrote on Thursday that the court ignored “evidence of [the] defendant’s manipulation and premeditation,” and added, “Men who serially sexually exploit their power over women — especially the most vulnerable groups in society — will reap the benefit of today’s decision.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office told NPR in a written statement, “We will do everything in our power to retry this case, and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault.”
Despite the New York court’s ruling, Weinstein is not expected to be freed immediately. Another conviction against him still stands. In December 2022, Weinstein was found guilty of rape in Los Angeles and was later sentenced to 16 years years in prison. He is currently being held in semi-protective custody in an upstate New York prison, but his spokesman told The New York Times that he will now be sent to California to serve his sentence for the convictions there.
