In March 2020, Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault. The ex-Hollywood mogul wants to continue to prove his innocence - but his appeal against the verdict was rejected in June. Now an appeals court decides otherwise.
Ex-Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, 70, is eligible to appeal his 2020 sex crimes conviction. An appeals court in New York granted permission for this step on Wednesday, as US media reported unanimously.
"We are hopeful and grateful for this rare opportunity," Weinstein's spokesman Juda Engelmayer said in a statement on Wednesday. In the earlier trial and in the conviction, a lot was wrong, Engelmayer continued.
Weinstein insisted on his innocence in the statement and thanked his lawyers: "Your hard work will help me to prove my innocence in the end." Weinstein's lawyers said the ex-mogul didn't get a fair trial. They justified their accusation, among other things, with an allegedly partisan juror and the alleged bias of judge James Burke.
The lawyers initially failed in June with an appeal before a lower instance at the New York Court of Appeals. Now a higher instance of the court complied with their request to contest the verdict.
Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison in March 2020 for rape and sexual assault. The conviction marked a milestone in legal history. In the sensational case in which the
Weinstein is currently being held in a Los Angeles jail awaiting trial in California. Recently he has also been confronted with a lawsuit in Great Britain. This emerges from an official announcement on the official website of the law enforcement agency Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) on June 8th. According to the statement, the CPS gave the police permission to charge Weinstein with two counts of sexual assault. The charges were approved after reviewing evidence gathered by the Metropolitan Police during their investigation. The incidents involving a woman are said to have happened in 1996.
