Former movie producer Harvey Weinstein listens in court docket throughout a pre-trial listening to for Weinstein, who was extradited from New York to Los Angeles to face sex-related fees in Los Angeles, California on July 29, 2021.
Etienne Laurent | AFP | Getty Photos
A New York appeals court docket has upheld Harvey Weinstein’s rape and sexual assault conviction, rejecting the disgraced media mogul’s attraction that recommended a choose unfairly tilted the result of his trial in favor of the prosecution.
The unanimous ruling by a five-justice appellate panel discovered the choose’s actions had been acceptable and didn’t warrant overturning Weinstein’s 23-year sentence.
Weinstein was convicted in 2020 in New York earlier than being extradited to Los Angeles to await trial on 11 additional sex crimes charges.
Weinstein’s attraction was filed in April 2021, a bit of greater than a yr after he was convicted of a first-degree legal sexual act and third-degree rape. The arguments had been rejected in a 45-page ruling printed Thursday.
“We’re clearly dissatisfied within the court docket’s resolution and stay up for asking the Court docket of Appeals to evaluation what we imagine are substantial meritorious authorized points,” mentioned Barry Kamins, a associate at Aidala, Bertuna and Kamins who represents Weinstein, in an announcement. “Mr. Weinstein will proceed to pursue all obtainable authorized treatments to ascertain that he didn’t obtain a good trial.”
Weinstein’s attorneys had argued in his attraction that errors by the trial choose made it unimaginable for Weinstein to obtain a good trial. Additionally they mentioned prosecutors shouldn’t have been allowed to name witnesses to testify about conduct for which Weinstein wasn’t charged. They usually mentioned one juror ought to have been faraway from the case as a result of she wrote a ebook that concerned “predatory males” and misled the court docket in regards to the ebook’s contents.
Within the ruling Thursday, Justice Angela Mazzarelli wrote on behalf of the court docket that the trial choose had used discretion within the materials allowed in the course of the trial. She additionally famous that whereas the juror’s novel was about teenage ladies who’ve a relationship with an older man, the state of affairs depicted wasn’t predatory.
“We understand no foundation for decreasing the sentence, and we’ve thought-about defendant’s remaining arguments and discover them unavailing,” Mazzarelli wrote.