A noticeably thinner Harvey Weinstein was wheeled into Manhattan criminal court on Wednesday for the first time since an appeals court’s shock decision to overturn his 2020 rape conviction.
There, the disgraced movie mogul faced rows of reporters and a surprising face: one of the women he was found guilty of abusing at the 2020 trial.
“Jessica Mann, one of the sexual assault victims in this case, is not backing down and is committed to knowing that justice is served again,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg said at the hearing. “She has the truth.”
“We have every belief that the defendant will be convicted again,” she added.
Mann, who was sitting in the courtroom in a red shirt, looked straight ahead as prosecutors vowed to retry Weinstein as soon as September. The 73-year-old—clad in a blue blazer with an American flag pin and the price tag still on it—did not look at Mann as a court officer wheeled him into the packed courtroom, two floors above where former President Donald Trump is currently being tried over hush-money payments to a porn star.
After the 25-minute court hearing, Weinstein gave his lawyer a high-five handshake before a court officer rolled him away.
In a 4-3 decision, the New York Court of Appeals ruled last week that Weinstein’s trial judge “erroneously” allowed testimony from women with sexual misconduct allegations against him who were not victims in the case.
At trial, Weinstein was convicted of sexually assaulting former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haleyi and raping Mann—but jurors heard from at least four other accusers who were meant to bolster the prosecution’s argument that he had a pattern of bad behavior.
“We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes because that testimony served no material non-propensity purpose,” the court said in their ruling. “The court compounded that error when it ruled that defendant, who had no criminal history, could be cross-examined about those allegations as well as numerous allegations of misconduct that portrayed defendant in a highly prejudicial light.”
Prosecutors on Wednesday insisted they could bring another case against Weinstein by September—even without so-called Molineux witnesses—and asked that he be held behind bars in the meantime. Judge Curtis Farber agreed, remanding Weinstein until his next court date on May 29.
Weinstein’s defense attorneys pushed back, arguing that the toppled titan is no longer convicted of a crime in New York.
“My client is as sharp as ever, he has read hundreds and hundreds of books,” defense attorney Arthur Aidala said in court. “He was acquitted of rape in the first degree. He’s already done his time.”
Aidala added that Weinstein maintains that he is innocent and welcomes a new trial to prove it.
Weinstein still faces 16 years in a California state prison after being convicted of similar charges in Los Angeles in 2022.
