New York – New York (AP) – Harvey Weinstein ‘The #MeToo trial next month will be largely a summary version of the original, with a great addition: a position based on an accusation of a woman who was not part of the first case.
But in a key audience prior to the trial on Wednesday, the lawyers of the Mogul of dishonorable films warned that because the condemnation for Weinstein’s sexual violation and aggression was revoked, the past is not a prologue, it is almost completely irrelevant.
“We can take that transcription and all the decisions of the judge and throw them in the trash,” said Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala. “That trial was declared illegal by the highest court of this State.”
The New York Court of Appeals showed Weinstein’s conviction last year, preparing the stage for a new trial as of April 15 in the State Court in Manhattan. Prosecutors say it could take about five weeks.
The way in which the new trial will take place began to take shape on Wednesday when Judge Curtis Farber ruled a series of pending problems, including the testimony of experts and the language used to describe the accusers.
Farber granted a prosecution request to call a psychologist, Dawn Hughes, as an expert witness on the psychological and traumatic effects of sexual violation and aggression. Hughes previously testified for Amber Heard actor at the Johnny Depp defamation trial against Heard in 2022 and as a witness of prosecution at the Federal Sex Trafficking trial of singer R. Kelly in Brooklyn in 2021.
The judge also granted a defense application to prevent the “survivor” term of being used to describe Weinstein accusers. He told prosecutors to instruct any police officer to testify to women as “witnesses complaining.”
While Weinstein’s convictions of the first trial were expelled, their absolute for the most serious positions, two positions of predatory sexual assault and rape in the first degree, or forced, still remain.
Given that, Farber ordered prosecutors to instruct one of the accusers who testify in the trial of not using the word “force” when describing their alleged assault.
The Manhattan district prosecutor had wanted to exclude any mention from Weinstein’s absolute and the unemployed sentence, but Farber said he could be obliged to give them a clue depending on how the accuser testifies.
“Do you have to use the word force? Can you describe what happened and let the jury get their own conclusions?” The judge asked. “I am not asking you to change your testimony from the first trial. I ask you to refrain from using the word force.”
Other decisions were made behind the closed doors when Farber met with prosecution and defense for more than an hour in their cameras to discuss issues that are still sealed.
They included a request for prosecution that two of the three accusers in the case could testify on other alleged meetings with Weinstein. They also discussed the evidence of the sexual history of the accusers, which prosecutors say it should be prohibited under the New York violation shield law.
Weinstein, 72, was in the Court for Wednesday’s procedures, arriving from jail in a wheelchair and a lawsuit and holding a pile of documents. Before the public part of his audience began, the former head of study observed how Farber spent a few minutes solving another issue that had been delayed by his discussions behind closed doors.
In his last appearance in the Court in January, Weinstein had implored Farber to begin the new trial before.
He told the judge “I don’t know how much more I can endure” with cancer, heart problems and hard conditions in the Rikers Island prison complex in New York City, where he is locked up. Farber said he can celebrate the jury selection a few days before if a murder trial that is supervising is concluded earlier than expected.
Weinstein is being withdrawn by the positions that oral sex made in a films and television production assistant in 2006 and violated an aspiring actor in 2013. The additional position, presented last September, alleges that he forced oral sex in a different woman in a Manhattan hotel in 2006.
Prosecutors said in judicial documents that the woman, which has not been publicly identified, were presented a few days before the beginning of Weinstein’s first trial, but was not part of that case. They said they did not pursue women’s accusations after Weinstein was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison, but they reviewed and obtained a new accusation after their conviction was expelled.
Farber ruled in October to combine the new accusation and the charges in a single trial.
Weinstein’s lawyers argue that prosecutors harmed him when waiting for almost five years to present the additional position, suggesting that they had chosen not to include the accusation in their first judgment to be able to use it later if their conviction was reversed.
Weinstein has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone.
In Decompating Weinstein’s condemnationThe Court of Appeals ruled that the judge of first instance, James M. Burke, unfairly allowed the testimony against him based on the accusations of other women who were not part of the case. Burke is no longer in the bank and such testimony will not be part of the trial.
Weinstein was condemned in Los Angeles In 2022 of another violation. His 16 -year prison sentence in that case is still standing, but his lawyers appealed in Junearguing that he did not receive a fair trial.
