Twist in the Weinstein case. The New York State Court of Appeals has overturned the verdict against the Hollywood producer and symbol of Metoo, convicted in 2020 of sexual crimes. This is, writes the New York Times, an extraordinary reversal which however does not alter the foundations of the story on which the American movement developed.
In a narrow 4-3 decision, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge who presided over the case had made a crucial error: the prosecutor’s office was allowed to call as witnesses a series of women who claimed to have been abused by Weinstein, but whose accusations were not part of the charges against the producer of Jewish origin. The justification for the decision states that Weinstein was therefore not judged only on the basis of the crimes he was accused of, but also on the basis of his past behaviour.
The overturning of the conviction and the order to hold a new trial might seem like a sudden and shocking turning point, but in the collective imagination Weinstein is a completely dishonored figure: condemned to long prison terms in two cities, nailed by public testimony of almost 100 alleged victims whose stories formed the cornerstone of the MeToo movement, the producer achieved little more than a Pyrrhic victory. In legal terms his conviction in New York has always been controversial and his appeals have always had a chance.
Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, told the NYT by phone that the decision “was not only a victory for Mr. Weinstein, but for every defendant in the state of New York, and we commend the Court of Appeals for upholding the most elementary principles.” In 2020, Lauren Young and two other women, Dawn Dunning and Tarale Wulff, reported in court about their encounters with Weinstein under a state law that allows testimony of “prior malicious conduct” to demonstrate a pattern of behavior. But the Court of Appeal states that “the accused has the right to be held responsible only for the crime charged.” Ashley Judd, the first actress to come forward with accusations against Weinstein, contacted by telephone by the New York Times, said that the decision “is unfair to the survivors”. «We still live in our truth. And we know what happened »she added. “This is a shocking and disheartening day for survivors of sexual assault,” said Jane Manning, director of the Women’s Equal Justice Project and a former sex crimes prosecutor, and “it demonstrates how much work we all still have to do to advance the ideals of the movement # MeToo.”
The disgraced movie mogul, 72, is serving a 23-year sentence in a New York prison following his conviction for forcibly performing oral sex on a television and film production assistant in 2006 and third-party rape degree for an assault on an aspiring actress in 2013. He will remain in prison because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Weinstein was acquitted in Los Angeles of charges involving one of the women who testified in New York. The reversal of Weinstein’s conviction is the second major MeToo setback in the past two years, after the US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a Pennsylvania court’s decision to throw out his conviction for sexual assault by Bill Cosby.
