New York’s highest court overturned movie producer Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction on felony sex crime charges on Thursday. The court also ordered that a new trial take place. In the ruling, the New York Court of Appeals claimed the judge in charge of the trial “erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes.”
“Defendant was convicted by a jury for various sexual crimes against three named complainants and, on appeal, claims that he was judged, not on the conduct for which he was indicted, but on irrelevant, prejudicial, and untested allegations of prior bad acts,” Judge Jenny Rivera shared in the ruling.
Weinstein was arrested for rape in 2018, and found guilty of first-degree sexual assault and three years for third-degree rape in 2020. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office said they would do “everything in our power” to retry the case. The producer’s lawyers, meanwhile, shared they are “studying the ramifications of the appeal right now.” For now, he remains behind bars, as he was also convicted in California in 2022 for a separate rape case.