NEW YORK — A New York appeals court considering Harvey Weinstein’s request to overturn his 2020 rape and sexual assault conviction appeared Wednesday to empathize with the disgraced film producer’s argument that he’d been placed in a “legal vise” by uncharged crimes.
At Weinstein’s trial, the judge and a juror sabotaged the Hollywood mogul’s chances of getting a fair shake, Weinstein’s lawyer Barry Kamins told the Appellate Division, First Department.
“The defendant is in a stranglehold,” Kamins said. “He was in a legal vise in this case.”
Kamins argued the court should give Weinstein a new trial based on a juror who was writing a book exploring themes about predatory older men.
The lawyer added that a series of rulings by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice James Burke, which allowed three witnesses to testify about uncharged “bad acts,” forced Weinstein’s lawyers to mount an impossible defense. The women were Tarale Wulff, Lauren Young, and Dawn Dunning.
“These rulings punitively prevented Mr. Weinstein from taking the stand in his own defense and from getting a fair trial,” Kamins asserted.
“Considering the unprecedented trial publicity, the trial court had a heightened responsibility to ensure that Mr. Weinstein received a fair trial, and that possibility was destroyed.”
Wulff told the jury that Weinstein sexually assaulted and raped her inside his SoHo loft. Young testified he pinned her against an LA hotel room sink while groping her breast and masturbating. Dunning said Weinstein tried to force her into a threesome to get a movie role.
But Associate Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels on Wednesday described the uncharged accounts Judge Burke allowed the women to share as “incredibly prejudicial testimony.”
“‘I wasn’t charged with three rapes, and here come three other women who claim I did the same thing to them — but I’m not being charged with them,’” said Justice Manzanet-Daniels, dramatizing what Weinstein was facing.
The judge also questioned prosecutors’ reasons for asking the judge to consider in weighing the sentence how Weinstein, in the 1980s, threatened to cut his male employee’s genitals off with garden shears.
“You’re really arguing that this is not overkill?” Judge Manzanet-Daniels asked the DA’s lawyer.
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Valerie Figueredo said Young, Dunning, and Wulff’s testimony illustrated Weinstein’s state of mind for the jury.
“The threatening behavior again goes directly to demonstrating his ability to put his own self-interest (above) the expense of others, and that goes to the heart of honesty and integrity,” said Figueredo.
“The fact that there were many of these acts only indicated how the defendant chose to live his life.”
Weinstein is serving a 23-year prison sentence on his Manhattan conviction. He’s awaiting trial in California on similar charges, where he was extradited in July.
It’s not clear when the appeals court will issue a ruling.
