Weinstein’s lawyer says it’s a ‘great day for America’ after his rape conviction is overturned

Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers hailed it “a great day for America” after the disgraced Hollywood mogul’s rape conviction was overturned on Thursday.

Weinstein, 72, was found guilty in 2020 of raping and assaulting two women, and is serving 23 years at a prison in upstate New York.

The New York court of appeals overturned the conviction on a 4-3 majority, stating that the original trial judge made “egregious errors” by allowing prosecutors to call witnesses whose allegations were not related to the charges at hand.

Weinstein’s attorney Arthur Aidala praised the decision and said that his client had been “tried on his character, not the evidence,” during a press conference outside Manhattan criminal court on Thursday.

“Today’s legal ruling is a great day for America because it instills in us the faith that there is a justice system, that a judge…will say: ‘I don’t care who the defendant is, if it’s a former president of the United States, or the most storied Hollywood producer of our generation. The law applies to everyone,’” Mr Aidala said.

Weinstein learned that his conviction was overturned after someone inside Mohawk Correctional Facility in Rome, New York, handed him a copy of a two-sentence article breaking the news, Mr Aidala said.

The lawyer said that the court’s decision had been unexpected and that Weinstein was “very gracious and grateful”.

Weinstein’s victims reacted with fury to the news. Ashley Judd, the first actor to come forward with sexual harrassment allegations against Weinstein, told The New York Times that the decision is “unfair to survivors.”

“This is what it’s like to be a woman in America, living with male entitlement to our bodies,” she said later, at a press conference.

Lindsay Goldbrum, who represented six women who came forward against Weinstein, called the decision was a “leap backward for the rule of law” and said it could deter future sexual assault victims from coming forward. “To all victims of sexual assault who are retraumatized by today’s ruling, I am so sorry,” she told NBC News.

Ms Goldbrum’s clients include Ms Wulff, who testified that the former Hollywood producer raped in her 2005.

Weinstein is now entitled to a new trial in New York which his legal team confirmed that it will pursue.

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has said that it plans to retry Weinstein, which means his accusers could be forced to retell their stories on the witness stand.

“We will do everything in our power to retry this case, and remain steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault,” a spokesperson for Mr Bragg’s office toldThe Independent.

The appeal court’s decision does not mean that Weinstein will be freed. He was also convicted of rape in California two years ago, and given a 16-year sentence.

However he will not be immediately extradited to California. Weinstein will be moved to a different facility, likely in New York City, his spokesperson Juda Engelmayer told The Independent on Thursday.

There, he will await word on whether Mr Bragg intends to re-try the case. If the DA decides not to move ahead, Weinstein will be extradited to California.

At his 2020 trial, Weinstein was convicted of sexually assaulting former production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006 and raping former aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013.

Several women, who were not part of the official charges testified against him. The witnesses included actress and model Tarale Wulff, who said Weinstein raped her in 2005; actress and producer Dawn Dunning who said he put his hand up her skirt in 2004; and Lauren Young, who said Weinstein masturbated in front of her and groped her in 2013.

More than 100 women in Hollywood came forward against the disgraced producer, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and Uma Thurman.

The Weinstein rape and assault revelations, which came to light in a series of newspaper and magazine articles in late 2017, launched the #MeToo movement which captured the magnitude of abuse of women that had taken place for decades across society – from the movie and media industries to restaurants, tech and the legal profession.

Weinstein’s defence attorneys had appealed his 2020 New York conviction in February, arguing “he was judged, not on the conduct for which he was indicted, but on irrelevant, prejudicial, and untested allegations of prior bad acts”.

While the appeals court sided with this argument, the three dissenting justices issued a blistering opinion. Judge Madeline Singas wrote that the decision “has continued a disturbing trend of overturning juries’ guilty verdicts in cases involving sexual violence.”

“Fundamental misunderstandings of sexual violence perpetrated by men known to, and with significant power over, the women they victimize are on full display in the majority’s opinion,” she wrote.

This decision comes after former TV star Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction was thrown out in Pennsylvania in 2021, and he was released. Cosby’s trial was another notable case that stemmed from women who came forward during the #MeToo movement.