By Chloe Melas and Rebecca Cohen – NBCNews
Weeks after Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction was overturned in New York, the disgraced former movie mogul filed a motion to overturn another rape and sexual assault conviction in California.
Weinstein filed his appeal in the Los Angeles case with the Second District Court of Appeals on Friday, according to court documents obtained by NBC News. He is requesting a new trial.
“Harvey Weinstein was tried by a system dedicated to ‘getting’ him at all costs. “This appeal demonstrates nearly a dozen areas of brazen legal errors that violated his right to a fair trial,” Weinstein’s publicist Juda Engelmayer stated in a statement to NBC News on Thursday. “We know he has a strong case.”.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Weinstein’s lawyers claim in the appeal that Weinstein “has been wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting Jane Doe 1.”
The former Hollywood producer was found guilty in 2022 of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault of a woman known as Jane Doe 1, referred to as JD1 in appeal documents, at the trial in Los Angeles. Weinstein is serving a 16-year sentence as a result of that conviction.
He was found not guilty of sexual assault by restraint against a woman identified at trial as Jane Doe 2. In the same case, the jury was unable to reach a decision on three counts of sexual assault Weinstein faced, involving two other women known as Jane Doe 3 and Jane Doe 4.
The conviction in Los Angeles occurred almost three years after his trial in New Yorkin which he was convicted in 2020 of two felonies: rape in the third degree and criminal sexual act in the first degree.
Those New York charges were thrown out in April after an appeals court found that the judge in the case had prejudiced Weinstein with inappropriate rulings, including allowing the women to share testimony and accusations that were not part of the case. Weinstein had been serving a 23-year sentence in a New York prison.
Weinstein, who is being held on New York’s Rikers Island, could face a possible new trial in that state. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has indicated that he is interested in bringing the Weinstein case back to trial, but no official date has been set for the trial.
Weinstein’s lawyers argue in the California appeal that he was not given a “fair opportunity to defend himself against JD1’s allegations” and, given the close nature of the case, the jury likely would have acquitted him because “the prosecution’s case in relationship with JD1 was weak and based, in part, on evidence that he knew to be false.”
“The jury was misled about the veracity of the JD1 testimony and prevented from considering decisive evidence that pointed to the defendant’s innocence, and contradicted the prosecution’s theory of guilt,” Weinstein’s lawyers wrote in the motion.
The appeal reiterates the nature of the charges involving Jane Doe 1who alleged that Weinstein showed up at her hotel room uninvited and “raped her for more than an hour” while she was visiting for the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival in 2013, according to the document.
Jane Doe 1 alleged at trial that the only person who knew where she was staying at the time was the founder and host of the event, who was a friend of hers, according to the court document.
The appeal claims that the prosecution “theorized” that the founder “lured the defendant to his festival by offering JD1 as sexual bait and then provided his hotel information to the defendant.”
Weinstein’s lawyers say that story is “false.” Their “flaw,” they argue, is that Jane Doe 1 and the founder of the event were actually in a romantic relationship, so it would have been unlikely that the founder would have introduced her to Weinstein if they were “at the height of their fiery romance.” .”
Weinstein’s lawyers argue that prosecutors failed to explain why Weinstein targeted Jane Doe 1, or how he could have found her without the event host’s help.
[Hospitalizan a Harvey Weinstein poco después de la anulación de uno de sus juicios]
The appeal maintains that the Weinstein’s right to present a defense under the Sixth Amendmentbecause the defense could not use evidence to prove their romantic relationship.
Other evidence about Jane Doe 1’s whereabouts at the time she said Weinstein had raped her was also withheld, according to the appeal. Based on messages that could not be presented in court, Weinstein’s lawyers believe Jane Doe 1 was with the festival founder at the time.
“When the court scrubbed the messages, leaving the jury with the false impression that JD1” and the founder “were simply ‘friends,’ it destroyed the defendant’s defense, interfered with his ability to prove his innocence, and allowed the prosecution to present a narrative that everyone in the room, except the jury, knew was false,” the court document indicates.
NBC News has contacted the founder for comment.
Among the other complaints detailed in the complaint, Weinstein’s lawyers claim they were prohibited from questioning Jane Doe 1 about her financial situation, including that she feared she would be evicted. The appeal alleges that the jury “was left with another false impression of JD1, in other words, that she had no financial interest in the outcome of the case.” According to the document, JD1 stated that he would not sue Weinstein, which he did a month later.
The appeal states that “three of the jurors who participated in the defendant’s trial immediately regretted having signed a guilty verdict, upon learning that they had been denied critical evidence showing that JD1” and the founder of the event “were in a romantic relationship and had been lied to,” and that the jurors “explained that if they had had access to that evidence they would have changed their minds about whether any rape had occurred.”
“Disarming the defendant’s defense, as the trial court did, deprived the accused of his constitutional right to present a defense and led to a miscarriage of justice,” the court document argues.
Weinstein’s lawyers also claim that jurors were informed during selection that the mogul had previously been convicted of rape in New York, and argue that a “fair and impartial trial was doomed from the beginning.” Furthermore, they emphasize, the prosecution was allowed to “present evidence of 12 uncharged sexual crimes, some dating back decades,” which “added nothing to the jury’s consideration of whether the prosecution had proven the charges. .”
“The presentation of this excessive, cumulative and remote evidence of prior ‘sexual assaults’ simply indicated to the jury that the defendant was a bad man who should be convicted of something, regardless of whether the prosecution had been able to prove the validity of his case.” Weinstein’s lawyers said in the appeal.
Weinstein’s team stated that “You have the right to a new trial in which his constitutional rights are safeguarded, in which he is allowed to present evidence of his innocence, and in which his conduct, not his character, is judged.”
