A NEW York court has overturned a 2020 decision that found disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein guilty of rape.
Weinstein, 71, was at the center of a media firestorm after numerous women accused him of sexual abuse, kicking off the #MeToo era.
A New York court has overturned a 2020 decision that found Harvey Weinstein guilty of rapeGetty
APWeinstein is seen outside the New York court where prosecutors called witnesses who had nothing to do with the charges filed against him, judges decided Thursday[/caption]
ReutersManhattan district attorney Alvin L. Bragg, who is working the trial against former President Donald Trump, will decide whether to seek retrial[/caption]
On Thursday, the New York Court of Appeals decided Weinstein didn’t receive a fair trial in a stunning 4-3 decision.
The court said the judgment had to be thrown out because prosecutors called multiple women as witnesses who fired off accusations at Weinstein that were unrelated to his charges.
The testimonies “destroyed” Weinstein’s past character and were “an abuse of judicial discretion,” the court majority said.
Judge Madeline Singas, who presided over the case, voiced her frustrations with the decision and said it was part of a “disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.”
Despite the bombshell decision, Weinstein, who has been serving a 23-year sentence in a New York prison, will remain behind bars.
This is because he was convicted of raping a woman in a Beverly Hills hotel by a Los Angeles court in 2022 and was sentenced to 16 years.
Manhattan district attorney Alvin L. Bragg, who is working the historic trial against former President Donald Trump, will decide whether to seek a retrial of Weinstein.
DISTURBING ALLEGATIONS
Weinstein was accused of sexual misconduct by more than 100 women and was convicted of assaulting two in New York, according to The New York Times.
The Times broke the story in October 2017 and detailed decades of abuse allegedly suffered by actresses like Rose McGowan and Ashley Judd.
Days after the story was published, Weinstein was dropped from his production company, and more women started to speak about alleged misconduct to other outlets.
His case opened up a sea of allegations in the entertainment industry against producers, actors, and other leaders.
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