Harvey Weinstein could step up to the witness stand at Manhattan Criminal Courthouse in the near future.
On February 24, 2020, a jury in New York found Harvey Weinstein guilty of third-degree rape and one count of criminal sexual act in the first degree. Less than three weeks later, Judge James Burke sentenced Weinstein to three years in prison for third-degree rape and 20 years for the criminal sexual act conviction.
Four years after Weinstein was convicted, the New York Court of Appeals overturned the conviction in a 4-3 ruling. The seven-member court determined the court made an error by allowing testimony from witnesses they deemed were not directly tied to charges he was being tried for.
“The synergistic effect of these errors was not harmless,” Judge Jenny Rivera said. “The only evidence against [the] defendant was the complainants’ testimony, and the result of the court’s rulings, on the one hand, was to bolster their credibility and diminish [the] defendant’s character before the jury. On the other hand, the threat of a cross-examination highlighting these untested allegations undermined [the] defendant’s right to testify. The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial.”
On April 15, 2025, the retrial of Harvey Weinstein began in Manhattan. Much like the first trial, Weinstein has been accused of forcibly performing oral sex on then-Project Runway production assistant Mimi Haley in 2006 and raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013. However, there may be one major change in the retrial.
Weinstein did not testify in the first trial in 2020, but he may do so in the retrial. According to his attorney, it’s a “game time” decision.
“We’re going to make a game time, more or less, decision,” attorney Arthur Aidala said.
“There is a part of him that is seriously contemplating in a ‘he-said, she-said’ case whether human beings feel obligated to hear the other side of the story.”
The trial, which began on April 15, was initially expected to last five to six weeks, but could be extended if Weinstein takes the stand.
