Harvey Weinstein appears in court as retrial approaches
Harvey Weinstein appeared in a Manhattan courtroom Wednesday ahead of his retrial, which is scheduled to start in just over a month.
Judge Curtis Farber ruled on a number of outstanding issues, including expert testimony and the language used to describe the accusers.
Farber granted a prosecution request to call a psychologist, Dawn Hughes, as an expert witness on the psychological and traumatic effects of rape and sexual assault. Hughes previously testified for actor Amber Heard at Johnny Depp's libel trial against Heard in 2022 and as a prosecution witness in singer R. Kelly's federal sex trafficking trial in Brooklyn in 2021.
The judge also granted a defense request to preclude the term "survivor" from being used to describe Weinstein's accusers. He told prosecutors to instruct any police officers who testify to refer to the women as "complaining witnesses" instead.
While Weinstein's convictions from the first trial were thrown out, his acquittals on the most serious charges — two counts of predatory sexual assault and first-degree, or forcible, rape — still stand.
Given that, Farber ordered prosecutors to instruct one of the accusers testifying at the retrial not to used the word "force" when describing her alleged assault.
The Manhattan district attorney's office had wanted to exclude any mention of Weinstein's acquittals and vacated conviction, but Farber said he could be obligated to clue them in depending on how the accuser testifies.
"Does she have to use the word force? She can describe what happened and let the jury draw its own conclusions?" the judge asked. "I am not asking her to change her testimony from the first trial. I am asking her to refrain from using the word force."
Other decisions were made behind closed doors as Farber met with the prosecution and defense for more than an hour in his chambers to discuss matters still under seal.
They included a prosecution request that two of the three accusers in the case be allowed to testify about other alleged encounters with Weinstein. They also discussed evidence of the accusers' sexual history, which prosecutors say should be barred under New York's Rape Shield Law.
Weinstein pleading for speedy trial
Weinstein's retrial is slated to begin on April 15, nearly a year after New York's highest court overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges.
At the last hearing, Weinstein pleaded with the judge to move up the start date, calling it a "serious emergency situation."
"Every day I'm at Rikers, it's a mystery to me how I'm still walking," he said in court. "I'm holding on because I want justice for myself and I want this to be over with."
The disgraced Hollywood mogul has been in custody at Rikers Island since last year, and his attorney says he suffers from a number of health issues.
2020 conviction overturned
A New York jury found Weinstein guilty in 2020 of sexually assaulting an assistant in 2006 and raping an aspiring actor in 2013. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Then last spring, the state's top court ruled the judge in the initial trial should not have allowed testimony from accusers who were not directly involved in the charges.
The upcoming retrial will include a new charge that has since been filed against Weinstein. It accuses him of forcing oral sex on a different woman at a Manhattan hotel in 2006.
Weinstein also faces a 16-year sentence in Los Angeles for a separate 2022 rape conviction.
