The women who came forward against Harvey Weinstein reacted with fury after the disgraced media mogul’s rape and sexual assault convictions were overturned by a New York appeals court on Thursday.
Weinstein, 72, was found guilty in 2020 of raping and assaulting two women, and is serving his 23-year sentence at a prison in upstate New York.
In a 4-3 decision on Thursday, New York’s highest court ruled the original judge made “egregious errors” in the trial by allowing prosecutors to call witnesses whose allegations were not related to the charges at hand.
Weinstein was once one of Hollywood’s most well-connected and powerful producers who made a series of Oscar-winning films. But behind the glamourous facade, it was a different story. More than 80 women have accused him of abuse ranging from groping to rape. Even with his conviction overturned in New York, he remains convicted of rape in California.
The Weinstein revelations launched the #MeToo movement in 2017, which saw women from all corners of society come forward to talk about their experiences of sexual harassment and assault.
Or, the lesson is: if you want to prosecute a rapist, don’t bring up rapes other than the one you are prosecuting.
The defense brought this up at trial not because Weinstein had expensive lawyers, but because any competent defense attorney would. At that point, the judge decided the defense was wrong, and the prosecution decided to take the risk that the defense was right. That risk backfired. Now, every Judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney in the juristiction is on notice about how to correctly apply prior bad acts rules to sexual assult cases, so they should be able to avoid making this mistake again.