Harvey Weinstein granted appeal two years after rape convictionDisgraced Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein has been granted an appeal more than two years after being found guilty of rape and sexual assault in New York.
The decision by a judge, reported by NBC, follows a New York appellate court upholding Weinstein’s conviction in June. If Weinstein's attorneys manage to sway the court, his rape conviction could be modified or dropped altogether. A court spokesman said oral arguments will be had in court sometime in 2023.
"We are grateful that Chief Judge [Janet] DiFiore acknowledged the unique legal issues in this case, and we are hopeful the entire court will find that Mr. Weinstein did not receive a fair trial and reverse his conviction," Weinstein attorney Arthur Aidala said.
"I am innocent of these charges, and I am so grateful to my attorneys for working hard and smart of this. Their hard work will help me prove my innocence in the end," Weinstein said in a statement.
Weinstein, 70, was sentenced to 23 years in prison after being convicted in 2020 on counts of third-degree rape and first-degree criminal sexual assault in New York.
He was arrested in Manhattan on May 25, 2018, a year after high-profile investigations from the New York Times and New Yorker magazine claimed Weinstein had spent his career using his position of power to abuse actresses and media figures sexually and then intimidate his victims to cover up the abuses. Though he faces accusations from dozens of women over the course of decades, his New York trial was over just some of the accusations. He was found guilty of two charges of committing a sexual act in the first degree and third-degree rape in February 2020.
The former movie mogul claimed the trial judge bungled the case in several ways, including accepting too many witnesses, some of whom had nothing to do directly with the sexual assault case, and a biased juror who failed to reveal previous writings on sex predators..................
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