NEW YORK — Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein’s rape and sexual assault conviction was upheld by a New York appeals court on Thursday.
“We perceive no basis for reducing the sentence, and we have considered defendant’s remaining arguments and find them unavailing,” reads the Appellate Division, First Department ruling.
A jury found Weinstein guilty on Feb. 24, 2020, of raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann at the DoubleTree hotel in 2013 and sexually assaulting film assistant Miriam Haleyi at his SoHo loft in 2006. He was acquitted on the top count of predatory sexual assault for allegedly raping “The Sopranos” actor Annabella Sciorra inside her Gramercy Park apartment in 1994.
The Miramax co-founder is in a California prison in Los Angeles, awaiting trial on 11 counts of sexual battery and rape. His lawyer Mark Werksman did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Prosecutors in LA announced their indictment on the eve of his New York trial.
Weinstein’s appeal argued that Burke’s pretrial rulings allowing testimony about so-called “bad acts” put him in a “stranglehold” and prevented him from getting a fair trial.
Tarale Wulff testified that Weinstein sexually assaulted her at work when she was a waitress at Cipriani’s and raped her inside his SoHo loft in 2005. Lauren Young testified that he pinned her against a hotel room sink in Beverly Hills while groping her breast and masturbating when she was an aspiring actress in 2013. Dawn Dunning testified about running out of a hotel when Weinstein tried to force her into a threesome to get a movie role in 2004.
“To the contrary, Dunning, Wulff and Young helped to fill out a picture of defendant as having no interest in ‘courting’ women in the traditional sense of building a romantic connection. Rather, their testimony was offered to demonstrate that defendant’s interest in Haley and Mann was strictly for the purpose of smoothing the way to a sexual encounter,” the decision reads.
Weinstein began fighting his extradition to LA after his March 11, 2020 sentencing to 23 years in prison, days before city and state officials announced COVID-19 lockdown measures.
The judge presiding over Weinstein’s California case has said she will allow six women to testify about uncharged acts.
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