Harvey Weinstein’s retrial unlikely to occur soon

NEW YORK (AP):

A retrial in New York of disgraced former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein won’t be coming to a courtroom any time soon, if ever, legal experts said on a day when one of two women considered crucial to his rape trial said she wasn’t sure she would testify again.

A ruling last Thursday by the New York Court of Appeals voided the 2020 conviction of the one-time Hollywood power broker, who, prosecutors say, forced young actors to submit to his prurient desires by dangling his ability to make or break the their careers.

On Saturday, Weinstein was in custody in a Manhattan hospital where he was undergoing multiple tests, attorney Arthur Aidala said.

The appeals court, in a four-three decision, vacated a 23-year jail sentence and ordered a retrial of Weinstein, saying the trial judge erred by letting three women testify about allegations that were not part of the charges and by permitting questions about Weinstein’s history of “bad behaviour” if he testified. He did not. He was convicted of forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant and of third-degree rape for an attack on an aspiring actor in 2013.

Several lawyers said in interviews on Friday that it would be a long road to reach a new trial for the 72-year-old ailing movie mogul and magnet for the #MeToo movement who remains behind bars, and it was doubtful that one could start before next year, if at all.

“I think there won’t be a trial in the end,” said Joshua Naftalis, a former Manhattan federal prosecutor now in private practice. “I don’t think he wants to go through another trial, and I don’t think the state wants to try him again.”

Aidala said on Saturday that he plans to tell a judge at a Manhattan court appearance on Wednesday that he believes a trial could occur any time after Labour Day.

Deborah Tuerkheimer, a professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and former assistant district attorney in Manhattan, said whether there is a second trial will “hinge on the preferences of the women who would have to testify again and endure the ordeal of a retrial”.

Jane Manning, director of the nonprofit Women’s Equal Justice, which provides advocacy services to sexual assault survivors, agreed “the biggest question is whether the two women are willing to testify again”.

Tama Kudman, a West Palm Beach, Florida criminal defence lawyer who also practises in New Jersey and New York, said prosecutors will likely soon have conversations with key witnesses for a retrial.

“It’s really up to them, at the end of the day, whether they want to go through that again,” Kudman said, noting that prosecutors will have to see if witnesses can withstand a second trial.

The legal process is already in motion, with Weinstein’s Wednesday appearance likely to focus in part on where he will be incarcerated while he awaits a new trial.

The daunting path to a new trial was clear on Friday when Miriam Haley, one of two women at the heart of the charges against Weinstein, said during an electronic news conference that she “will consider testifying again, should there be another trial,” but declined to commit to a new trial when questioned further about it.