Lawyers for Harvey Weinstein, the former powerful Hollywood producer sentenced to 23 years in prison for sexual offenses, have asked the New York court to cancel the trial, which was considered “unfair” and “miserably conducted”. The producer has filed an appeal against his rape conviction and is asking for a retrial.
In the 166 pages of the appeal, the lawyers highlighted seven complaints, including the one that Manhattan Supreme Court Justice James Burke did not allow the testimony of four women, whose accusations did not lead to the indictment of the former producer.
For the lawyers, the sentence “was not just a life sentence but a death sentence”.
Harvey Weinstein, stated that several women who accused him of sexual assault should never have been allowed to testify. This is what we read in the New York Times that reports the thesis of the lawyers of the 69-year-old US producer, whose story had triggered protests by the Mee Too movement. According to the lawyers, the testimony of the women called to the court would have led the jury to focus on the long history of the charges against their client rather than on the specific allegations debated in the trial.
More than eighty women, including many former actresses or aspirants, reported incidents ranging from sexual abuse to rape cases.
Weinstein is currently incarcerated at the Wende Correctional Facility, New York, from where he will be released on November 9, 2039, when he is 87 years old.