Harvey Weinstein appears in court days before new trial
Harvey Weinstein was back in court on Wednesday with less than a week before the start of his second New York sex assault trial. His trial is expected to last four to six weeks once testimony begins, prosecutors at the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Wednesday.
Jury selection begins Tuesday and is expected to last as long as five days, Judge Curtis Farber said.
Prospective jurors will be told about the nature of the case and the significant media attention it has received and must decide whether those things are an impediment to their ability to be fair and impartial, Farber said.
Weinstein, 73, sat at the defense table in a wheelchair as he has dealt with multiple health issues in the last year, including emergency heart surgery in September and being diagnosed with leukemia in October.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges of forcibly performing oral sex on a woman in 2006. He will also be retried for two other alleged sexual assaults after his conviction on those charges was overturned on appeal in April 2024.
The judge gave the attorneys 40 minutes to question each group of potential jurors after defense attorney Arthur Aidala asked for additional time.
“You have a shtick,” Farber deadpanned before granting the exuberant criminal defense lawyer an extra 10 minutes to question jurors.
Jurors will be told Weinstein has no obligation to testify in his own defense. If, however, he does, Farber decided there would be certain limits on the kinds of things he can be asked about his prior record.
Weinstein will stand trial on a new sexual assault charge at the same time he is retried on two other sexual assault charges after his earlier conviction was overturned.
In 2020, he was found guilty of criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape, receiving 23 years in prison.
His conviction was overturned after the appeals court found the judge in his first trial "erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes."
Because Weinstein was also convicted in California on sex crimes, and sentenced to 16 years in prison, he was not released after the verdict was overturned.
