Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction overturned by NY appeals court
New York’s highest court has overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, finding the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced the ex-movie mogul with “egregious” improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case.

by MICHAEL R. SISAK AND DAVE COLLINS
April 26, 2024

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein ’s 2020 rape conviction, reversing a landmark ruling of the #MeToo era. The court found the trial judge had improperly allowed testimony against the ex-movie mogul based on allegations that weren’t part of the case.

Weinstein, 72, will remain in prison because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape. But the New York ruling reopens a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures — an era that began in 2017 with a flood of allegations against Weinstein.

While Thursday’s ruling was a blow to #MeToo advocates, they noted it was based on legal technicalities and not an exoneration of Weinstein’s behavior, saying the original trial irrevocably moved the cultural needle on attitudes about sexual assault.


Weinstein Prosecutors Gambled and Lost

Trial included testimony about allegations not included in the charges

by Bob Cronin, Newser Staff
April 25, 2024

Arthur Aidala, center, an attorney for Harvey Weinstein, speaks during a press conference outside Manhattan Criminal Court, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in New York. (Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

The tossing of Harvey Weinstein's sex crimes conviction in New York may have been shocking, but prosecutors had taken a series of chances when pursuing the case, Jodi Kantor writes in a New York Times analysis. In the end, one law professor and former prosecutor said, whether his trial was fair "is a really close question that could have gone either way."

From a distance, the evidence against the former film mogul seemed conclusive, writes Kantor, who won a Pulitzer Prize for a Times investigation of the allegations and co-wrote She Said. But in the context of the requirements of the justice system, Kantor says, "the prosecutors had little concrete evidence."

The charges were based on the allegations of two women, who said they were sexually assaulted by Weinstein but had consensual sex with him at other times. So prosecutors had other women testify he'd abused them to establish a pattern of behavior. "The move risked violating a cardinal rule of criminal trials: Defendants must be judged on the acts they are being charged with," Kantor writes. The appeals court's opinion saw that as a fatal flaw in prosecutors' strategy. "No person accused of illegality may be judged on proof of uncharged crimes that serve only to establish the accused's propensity for criminal behavior," the opinion says. Kantor's analysis can be found here.