NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan prosecutors instructed a choose Wednesday they’re evaluating extra claims of sexual misconduct made towards Harvey Weinstein and will probably search a brand new indictment towards him earlier than his scheduled retrial on rape and sexual assault costs.
Assistant District Legal professional Nicole Blumberg mentioned throughout a courtroom listening to that further individuals have come ahead with assault claims and prosecutors are at present assessing which fall beneath the statute of limitations.
She mentioned some potential survivors that weren’t able to step ahead throughout Weinstein’s first New York trial could now be prepared to testify.
When requested by Decide Curtis Farber whether or not there was a risk of prosecutors submitting a brand new indictment, Blumberg replied: “Yes, your honor.”
Blumberg mentioned prosecutors can be in a greater place to replace the courtroom on the route of the case on the finish of June.
Farber set the following listening to date for July 9. The retrial on the rape cost is tentatively scheduled for a while after Labor Day.
Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, instructed reporters outdoors the courthouse after the listening to that his shopper was assured no further accusers can be discovered to bolster the prosecution’s case.
“He knows he’s never done anything like this,” Aidala mentioned of Weinstein.
Weinstein, showing in the identical New York Metropolis courthouse the place former President Donald Trump is on trial, entered the courtroom in a wheelchair, as he has throughout different latest courtroom hearings since his 2020 conviction was tossed out.
Weinstein has suffered from medical issues all through his time in jail, his attorneys have mentioned. He’s at present on the metropolis’s Rikers Island jail advanced.
Earlier within the listening to, Farber addressed a letter from prosecutors final week requesting the courtroom to remind Weinstein’s attorneys to not talk about or disparage potential witnesses in public forward of the retrial.
Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg’s workplace argues that Aidala made statements earlier this month that have been meant to intimidate Miriam Haley, a former TV and movie manufacturing assistant who Weinstein was convicted of sexually assaulting.
Aidala, Weinstein’s lawyer, apologized to the choose, saying he didn’t intend to intimidate anybody.
However he mentioned his shopper can be entitled to a “vigorous defense,” and that it’s the protection’s place that “lies were told at the last trial, and will be told at this one.”
Aidala argued attorneys for Weinstein’s accusers have been holding press conferences criticizing Weinstein all through his authorized ordeal.
“Who gets to stand up for Harvey Weinstein?” he requested in courtroom. “Who gets to be his voice?”
Farber, in response, directed each side to “refrain from pandering to the press,” saying the case will “not be decided in the court of public opinion” however within the courtroom of justice.
Haley didn’t attend Wednesday’s listening to and has expressed reluctance about going by the trauma of testifying once more.
Her lawyer Gloria Allred mentioned outdoors the courthouse that her shopper hasn’t decided but about whether or not she’ll take part within the retrial.
However Allred referred to as on Aidala to apologize to Haley for the “unwarranted, vicious and false” assault on her, made within the courtroom earlier Wednesday. Aidala declined, chatting with reporters later.
Talking outdoors of courtroom on Could 1, Aidala mentioned Haley lied to the jury about her motive in coming ahead and that his group deliberate an aggressive cross-examination on the problem “if she dares to come and show her face here.”
Weinstein’s unique trial was held in the identical courtroom the place Trump is on trial now, however the two males have been unlikely to stumble upon one another. Weinstein is in custody and was dropped at and from the courtroom beneath guard. He appeared in a courtroom on a distinct ground than the place Trump is at present on trial.
At his 2020 trial, Weinstein was convicted of raping Jessica Mann, an aspiring actor, and of sexually assaulting Haley. However final month New York’s highest courtroom threw out these convictions after figuring out that the trial choose unfairly allowed testimony towards him based mostly on allegations from different ladies that weren’t a part of the case. Weinstein, 72, has maintained that any sexual exercise was consensual.
The Related Press doesn’t typically establish individuals alleging sexual assault until they consent to be named, as each Haley and Mann have.
The New York ruling reopened a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by highly effective figures. The #MeToo period started in 2017 with a flood of allegations towards Weinstein.
Weinstein, who had been serving a 23-year sentence in New York, was additionally convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of one other rape and continues to be sentenced to 16 years in jail in California.
Observe Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.
