A handcuffed Harvey Weinstein was wheeled into a Manhattan courtroom Wednesday, where he was arraigned on a fresh round of rape and sexual assault charges that prosecutors announced they will re-try after a state appeals court overturned his 2022 conviction.
The judge set a new trial to begin sometime after Labor Day, presuming that an open date can be found. Due to the separate sentence awaiting him in California, Weinstein was to remain in custody until the new trial begins.
Weinstein arrived handcuffed and in a wheelchair after a stay at the Bellvue Hospital prison ward, where he returned following Wednesday’s hearing. Since the 2020 trial, defense lawyers have been emphasizing his declining health amid what they call “mideaval” conditions and treatment in the New York and California penal systems.
“This is so heavy handed, this has been the approach to Harvey while is sick from the beginning,” a person close to his legal team told TheWrap. “Why is he handcuffed apart from to make a public statement?”
The New York State Court of Appeals overturned Weinstein’s 2020 conviction last week, a shocking reversal that prompted a scathing dissent letter by one of the judges. The panel voted that the trial judge “erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts” that prejudiced the jury.
Four women whose allegations were never charged as crimes were allowed to testify to establish a “pattern” of criminality, a common practice in sex assault cases. But the appeals judges ruled that prosecutors went overboard in a way that was unfair to Weinstein’s defense.
Weinstein, now 72, served four years of his original 23-year sentence in a prison in upstate Rome, New York. He also owes a separate, 16-year sentence to the state of California, where he was convicted of rape in 2020, and was ordered to begin that sentence after the New York stint.
Weinstein reportedly was moved to Bellvue Hospital’s prison ward ahead of the Wednesday hearing. Weinstein, who is diabetic and losing his vision, started bringing a walker to court in 2018, then began using a wheelchair during the Los Angeles trial in 2020.
