Harvey Weinstein retrial in NYC tentatively set for November

NEW YORK (AP) — A choose on Friday tentatively scheduled Harvey Weinstein’s deliberate retrial on rape and sexual assault prices to start on Nov. 12.

Weinstein wore an American flag pin on his jacket throughout a quick court docket look in Manhattan that was delayed by greater than 90 minutes on account of a disruption that affected computer systems around the globe, in line with Choose Curtis Farber.

In addition to the setting of the trial date, the listening to addressed points associated to proof within the case in opposition to the previous Hollywood film mogul, notably data from telephones that will probably be reviewed by a former choose to find out whether or not supplies have been related to the case and must be turned over to protection attorneys.

At a listening to final week, prosecutors mentioned they anticipated a November retrial. They instructed Farber that they have been nonetheless actively pursuing new claims in opposition to Weinstein, although they conceded that they hadn’t but introduced any findings to a grand jury.

Weinstein denies that he sexually assaulted anybody.

His attorneys instructed Farber that they’d want an earlier trial date.

“He’s anxious to go to trial and show his innocence,” one among Weinstein’s attorneys, Diana Fabi Samson, mentioned outdoors the courthouse.

Weinstein, 72, is jailed on Rikers Island. Considered one of his attorneys, Arthur Aidala, has complained that Weinstein hasn’t been getting correct care in jail for diabetes, macular degeneration and fluid in his lungs and coronary heart.

Aidala was not in court docket on Friday, however one other Weinstein lawyer, John Esposito, instructed reporters that in a sidebar dialog with the choose, the protection once more introduced up Weinstein’s medical points. Farber mentioned he would help to the extent that he may to make sure that Weinstein is correctly cared for, Esposito mentioned.

Esposito mentioned the desire could be for Weinstein to be moved again to Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital, the place he may obtain correct medical consideration so he’s in a very good bodily and psychological mind-set for trial.

He was handled at Bellevue for a number of days after he was dropped at New York Metropolis hours after the state’s highest court docket threw out his 2020 conviction earlier this yr. The appeals court docket wrote that the unique trial choose unfairly allowed testimony in opposition to him based mostly on allegations that weren’t a part of the case.

He stays jailed partly as a result of he was sentenced to 16 years in jail in California after he was convicted in a rape case in Los Angeles in 2022. In an attraction filed there final month, his attorneys argued he didn’t get a good trial. Esposito mentioned Friday that he doesn’t anticipate the attraction within the California case to be determined for a minimum of one other yr.

Weinstein’s New York conviction had been thought-about a landmark within the #MeToo motion, an period that started in 2017 amid quite a few allegations of sexual misconduct in opposition to the as soon as highly effective studio boss behind “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love.”

In New York, Weinstein had been convicted of rape within the third diploma for an assault on an aspiring actress and of forcing himself on a TV and movie manufacturing assistant in 2006. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors have mentioned one of many accusers in that case, Jessica Mann, is ready to testify in opposition to Weinstein once more. Gloria Allred, a lawyer for the second accuser, Mimi Haley, mentioned final week that her consumer hadn’t but determined whether or not to take part within the retrial.

The Related Press doesn’t typically establish individuals alleging sexual assault until they consent to be named, as Haley and Mann did.