A New York appeals judge on Thursday rejected Harvey Weinstein’s sex assault conviction in a serious reverse of the world’s landmark# MeToo test, citing problems by the prosecution judge.
The condition appeals court found, in a , 4- 3 determination, that the prosecutor who presided over Weinstein’s 2017 test prejudiced the shamed Hollywood movie mogul’s case by allowing a series of people who said Weinstein had assaulted them to serve as witnesses, yet though their claims were never part of the case.
We come to the conclusion that the trial court improperly acknowledged testimony of prior, alleged sexual acts committed against people other than the accused of the underlying crimes because the testimony failed to serve a meaningful non-propensity function, the court said.
The court argued that the” synergistic effect of these errors was not harmless” and ordered a new trial.
” The only evidence against defendant was the complainants ‘ testimony, and the result of the court’s rulings, on the one hand, was to bolster their credibility and diminish defendant’s character before the jury”, the court added.
The former production assistant Mimi Haley and a former aspiring actress Jessica Mann have been serving a 23-year sentence since he was found guilty in 2020 of rape and a felony sex crime.
Weinstein, who has denied all wrongdoing, appealed in 2021, citing a series of issues, including errors at trial.
In the 160- page appeal, Weinstein’s legal team once again attacked the credibility of , the six women who testified at his 2020 trial , in lower Manhattan. Although the majority of the allegations were at least backed up by the testimony of others who had told the women about the alleged assaults at the time they occurred, Weinstein’s legal team questioned why they stayed in touch with the mogul after the alleged crimes, or, in some cases, why they kept having sex with him.
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