Harvey Weinstein: Gets Rape Charges Overturned in NY, Files Appeal in CA Against Other Sexual Assault Charges

Well, folks. It seems Harvey Weinstein isn’t done with his legal battles just yet.

Does he have connections in New York?

Are we witnessing any of his privilege?

Because his rape conviction got tossed out in New York.

Nothing to see here.

So now the disgraced Hollywood bigwig’s is setting his sights on overturning another conviction.

This time he wants to appeal for rape and sexual assault in California.

On Friday, Weinstein fired off his appeal in the Los Angeles case straight to the 2nd District Court of Appeal.

What’s he after?

A new trial, that’s what.

Does he think he’s going to be cleared of all charges and make it back to his throne in Hollywood?

Is he trying to get his kingdom back?

Harvey Weinstein appealed his sexual assault conviction in California after New York overturned his rape and sexual assault conviction, multiple outlets reported. https://t.co/KxRKwblito

— The Hill (@thehill) June 9, 2024

NBC News reports:

Weeks after Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction was overturned in New York, the disgraced film mogul filed an appeal to overturn a separate rape and sexual assault conviction in California.

Weinstein filed his appeal in the Los Angeles case in the 2nd District Court of Appeal Friday, according to court documents obtained by NBC News. He is requesting a new trial.

“Harvey Weinstein was tried by a system devoted to ‘getting him’ at all costs. This appeal demonstrates nearly a dozen areas of brazen legal missteps that violated his right to a fair trial,” Weinstein’s publicist Juda Engelmayer said in a statement to NBC News on Thursday. “We know he has a solid case here.”

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Lawyers for Weinstein claim in the appeal that Weinstein “​​stands wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting Jane Doe 1.”

The former Hollywood producer was found guilty in 2022 of one count of rape and two counts of sexually assaulting a woman known as Jane Doe 1, referred to as JD1 in the appeal documents, in the Los Angeles trial. Weinstein is serving a 16-year sentence stemming from that conviction.

He was found not guilty of sexual battery by restraint against a woman who was known in court as Jane Doe 2. In the same case, the jury was unable to reach a decision on three sexual assault counts Weinstein was facing, involving two more women known as Jane Doe 3 and Jane Doe 4.

The L.A. conviction came nearly three years after his New York trial, in which he was convicted in 2020 of two felonies — third-degree rape and first-degree criminal sex act.

Those New York charges were overturned in April after an appeals court found the judge in the case had prejudiced Weinstein with improper rulings, including letting women share testimony and allegations that weren’t part of the case. Weinstein had been serving a 23-year sentence in a New York prison.

Weinstein, who is being held at Rikers Island in New York, could be facing a potential new trial in that state. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has indicated that he is interested in retrying the Weinstein case, but no official trial date has been set.

Lawyers for Weinstein allege in the California appeal that he was not given a “fair opportunity to defend against JD1’s allegations,” and given the close nature of the case, the jury likely would have acquitted him because “the prosecution’s case as to JD1 was weak and premised, in part, on evidence it knew was false.”

“The jury was misled about JD1’s truthfulness and precluded from considering game-changing evidence that pointed to Defendant’s innocence and contradicted the prosecution’s theory of guilt,” Weinstein’s lawyers wrote in the appeal.

The appeal rehashes the nature of the charges involving Jane Doe 1, who alleged Weinstein showed up at her hotel room uninvited and “raped her for over an hour” while she was visiting for the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival in 2013, according to the document.

Jane Doe 1 alleged in the trial that the only person who knew where she was staying at the time was the founder and host of the event, who was a friend of hers, according to the appeal.

The appeal says the prosecution “theorized” that the founder “lured the Defendant to his festival by offering JD1 as sexual bait and then provided her hotel information to the Defendant.”

Weinstein’s lawyers say that story is “false.” Its “flaw,” they argue, is that Jane Doe 1 and the event founder were actually in a romantic relationship, so it would have been unlikely that the founder would have introduced her to Weinstein if they were “in the throes of their own torrid affair.”

Weinstein’s lawyers argue the prosecution could not explain why Weinstein targeted Jane Doe 1 or how he could have found her without the event host’s help.