Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction was overturned Thursday by the New York Court of Appeals.
As per CNN, the court found by a vote of 4-3 that the trial judge in 2020 made “egregious” errors by allowing testimony about uncharged prior sexual acts by Weinstein against other women.
“Weinstein 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,” read the court’s decision.
“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 … the remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial.”
This bombshell decision comes more than six years after explosive reports by The New York Times and The New Yorker in 2017. Those stories exposed Weinstein’s history of sexual misconduct, concealed through secret settlements and enabled by his considerable clout as a Hollywood producer
At the height of his career, Weinstein reigned as one of the film industry’s most powerful figures, producing acclaimed hits like “Pulp Fiction,” and “Kill Bill.” The accounts of his alleged serial abuses catalyzed the #MeToo movement, empowering women across the world to give voice to the systemic sexual harassment and assaults they had endured in the workplace, often in silence.
