The biggest scalp of the #MeToo movement, the man who arguably started it all, Harvey Weinstein, has had one of his convictions overturned.
The New York Court of Appeals has overturned the 2020 conviction on felony sex crime charges in a 4-3 ruling. The report in The Associated Press says that the court found that the judge in Weinstein’s original trial had shown prejudice and improper rulings. This is because that judge allowed women to testify about allegations that were not part of the case in question.
As such it became more of a referendum on ol’ Harv’s general sleaziness, rather than tackling the actual allegations at the heart of the case.
The court has ordered a new trial for 72-year-old Weinstein. He had been serving a 23-year sentence in a New York prison for criminal sex acts committed in 2006 and 2013. His downfall came after a New York Times investigation back in October 2017 that laid out details of alleged decades of sexually predatory behavior.
His conviction in February 2020 was on first-degree sexual assault and three years for third-degree rape, to be served consecutively. He won’t be released pending any re-trial, though. He is still also serving 16 years in prison due to a Los Angeles conviction as well.
If Weinstein serves anything approaching his full term, he is likely to die in prison if the retrial convicts him.
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