New York court agrees to allow Harvey Weinstein to appeal his sex crimes conviction

A New York court has granted once-powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein leave to appeal his 2020 conviction of 23 years in prison for two sex crimes.

Albany appeals court spokesman Gary Spencer reported that the investigating judge, Janet DiFiore, granted the request filed by Weinstein’s defense on August 19. “The hard work of my lawyers will ultimately help me prove my innocence,” he has said.

“We are hopeful that the entire court will determine that Mr. Weinstein did not receive a fair trial and overturn his conviction,” said, for his part Arthur Aidala, lawyer for the disgraced producer.

Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison for two of the five counts he had been charged with. Specifically, the jury found him guilty of a first-degree sex crime and a third-degree rape.

Those accusations sparked the #MeToo movement, whereby several actresses and female film workers revealed their experiences with Weinstein.

He is currently under arrest at the medical center in a Los Angeles jail awaiting another trial on eleven counts of rape and sexual assault. At the same time, he was charged in the UK in January 2022 with two other counts of sexual assault
allegedly committed in mid-1996.