Harvey Weinstein knew on Tuesday for sexual assault and rape after the cancellation of his first conviction – Liberation
Resume everything from the start. A new trial will open, from this Tuesday, April 15 in front of the Manhattan Criminal Court, in New York, against the fallen star producer Harvey Weinstein. The former boss of Miramax, who reigned for years on independent cinema, will appear a second time for the sexual assault of an ex-production assistant, Mimi Haleyi, in 2006, and the rape of the aspiring actress Jessica Mann, in 2013- facts for which he had been found guilty in 2020by the New York jury.
But this trial and the sentence of twenty-three years in prison required against him had been canceled in April 2024. In a very debated decision (four votes for, three against), the New York Court of Appeal had judged that testimonies of victims on sexual assault for which Harvey Weinstein was not charged should not have been heard by jurors at the trial. This cancellation was experienced as a slap for the movement to combat sexual and sexist violence and taking into account the speech of the victims by justice.
It was the first time that the King of Hollywood was condemned after the magnitude surveys of New York Times and New Yorker at the origin of his fall, leading to a release of the word against him, in 2017, and the beginning of The global wave #MeToo. Since then, Harvey Weinstein has been accused by more than 80 women of harassment, sexual assault or rape, including actresses Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow or Ashley Judd.
During this new trial, the two alleged victims should once again testify to the court. A new charge for an alleged sexual assault in 2006 in a Manhattan hotel was added to the file – the person concerned before it is also heard by the Court. According to New York judge Curtis Farber, the trial is planned to last up to six weeks, and begins on Tuesday with the selection of the jury, which could be spread over five days.
Harvey Weinstein, 73, hopes that the case will be « Watched with a new eye ». Always detained – it was also sentenced to sixteen years in prison in 2023 in California For rape and sexual assault in 2013 on a European actress – the producer of countless cinema successes (Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love, Sex Lies and Video …) appeared to the last audiences diminished by the disease, bald, pale and pushed on a wheelchair.
« It will be very different », wants to believe his lawyer Arthur Aidala, promising a trial « On the facts and not on #MeToo » :: « Five years ago, there were demonstrations, people who chanted » it’s a rapist « , (…) People were so against him. I think it all fell back. ” Affected by leukemia, Harvey Weinstein, has even « Holder » At the end of January the American justice to get him out « From his hole »,, Rikers Island prison in New York due to its state of health.
Described by his accusers as a predator who played his all-powerful man’s stature from the cinema to obtain sexual favors of actresses or assistants, most often in hotel rooms, Harvey Weinstein has never recognized any assault and always assured that relations were granted. « It is really an illustration of the challenges that the victims must face in their quest for justice », underlines Laura Palumbo, from the National Center for Resources on Sexual Violence in reaction to this new trial.
Since 2017, the #MeToo blast has continued in many countries, including France, where the world of culture has been forced to intros to the accusations of actress Judith Godrèche against the filmmakers Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon. Made public on Wednesday, a parliamentary report set an overwhelming observation of violence « Systemic » And « Endemic » in the world of culture in France.
