Arthur Aidala, Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer in the appellate case, opened the first press conference after the former Hollywood mogul’s rape conviction in New York was overturned saying that his team always knew that “Harvey Weinstein did not get a fair trial.”
“You can’t throw out 100 years of legal precedent because someone is unpopular,” Aidala said, referring to the Molineux case that helped overturn the ruling. “Today’s legal ruling is a great day for America because it instills in us the faith that there is a justice system.”
The New York state Court of Appeals overturned Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction Thursday, ruling that the judge in the New York County trial was prejudiced against Weinstein because among other things, the court allowed women to testify about allegations that were not part of the case.
Aidala said he spoke with Weinstein after 10 am Thursday on a call. Weinstein found out about the the ruling in prison this morning, when someone walked over and handed him a piece of paper saying the conviction was reversed. “He just heaped praise on me and my whole team. He said thank you more times than I could count,” the lawyer said.
“From the moment I met him at his office in Midtown he profoundly declared his innocence,” the attorney recalled of Weinstein. “He said the same thing today.”
The press conference took place in front of 100 Centre Street, where former President Donald Trump is currently on trial. And in the same park where a man set himself on fire last Friday, amid the Trump trial proceedings. A Trump supporter and press broadcasting for that trial surrounded the Weinstein press conference area.
A man in a pig mask holding a sign reading “Trump is a pig” appeared, and after, finding out it was a press conference for Weinstein, he folded his sign in half to read “is a pig” and stood behind the attorneys.
In light of the ruling, the court said a new trial must take place. Weinstein also went to trial in Los Angeles, where he was convicted in December 2022 of rape. That conviction means that Weinstein will remain in prison while the new New York trial gets established.
In the 2020 trial, Weinstein was found guilty of criminal sexual assault in the first degree, based on the testimony of former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haley, and rape in the third degree, based on the testimony of onetime aspiring actress Jessica Mann. He was acquitted on three other charges, and was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
“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 wrote in her ruling.
The Judge added, “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 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. The synergistic effect of these errors was not harmless.”
