John Jefferson
Harvey Weinstein will return to a California prison following a retrial on rape and sexual assault charges in New York, prosectors have announced.
The disgraced media mogul will stay at New York City’s Rikers Island until his Manhattan case is resolved. His east coast conviction was overturned in spring and the retrial will go ahead in November.
Weinstein appeared in court on Monday.
In a statement released after, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said: “Today, defendant Harvey Weinstein was formally arraigned on a governor’s warrant issued by Governor Kathy Hochul, who exercised her authority for him to re in New York State until his case in New York County is adjudicated.
“The defendant – who was convicted in California of forcible rape and other crimes – will be returned to the state of California after his case in New York County is completed. He will serve the California sentence first, as it is now his primary sentence.
“We thank the extradition staffs of Governor Hochul and California Governor Gavin Newsom, as well as our partners in the New York County District Attorney’s Office, the California Attorney General’s Office and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, for their assistance in this matter.”
Weinstein, 72, was found guilty in 2020 of rape and sexual assault in New York. In June 2024 the conviction was tossed out by appeals judges who said jurors shouldn’t have heard testimony from women who had accused the film producer of misconduct but whose allegations weren’t part of the case.
A retrial was tenatively scheduled for November 12 by judge Curtis Farber.
While his conviction was thrown out, Weinstein has reed behind bars due to his 16 prison sentence in California. He was convicted in a separate rape case in Los Angeles in 2022, and state prosecutors had pushed for his extradition.
Weinstein has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone and also filed an appeal against the California conviction in June.
“Harvey Weinstein was tried by a system devoted to ‘getting him’ at all costs. This appeal demonstrates nearly a dozen areas of brazen legal missteps that violated his right to a fair trial,” his publicist, Juda Engelmayer, told NBC News.
During the trial he was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman, known as Jane Doe 1. Weinstein was found not guilty of sexual battery against Jane Doe 2, and the jury could not reach a decision on whether or not he committed three other alleged sexual assaults.
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