Harvey Weinstein Lawyers Argue He Was Denied Fair Trial In Appeal Of LA Rape Conviction

Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers contend in an appeal that he was not given a fair trial when he was convicted of rape and sexual assault in Los Angeles in 2022 and sentenced to 16 years behind bars.

Only six weeks have passed since the state’s highest court overturned his same historic #MeToo conviction and 23-year jail sentence in New York.

The California appeal contends that the trial judge incorrectly suppressed evidence that the Italian model and actor he was convicted of raping had a sexual relationship with the director of a film festival that had brought both Weinstein and the woman to Los Angeles at the time of the alleged assault.

weinstein | AP News Image

Harvey Weinstein Lawyers Argue He Was Denied Fair Trial In Appeal Of LA Rape Conviction

Weinstein’s attorneys said the judge violated “his constitutional rights to present a defense and led to a miscarriage of justice.”

The attorneys argue that the judge erred in informing jurors about Weinstein’s previous, now-vacated conviction in New York and that testimony from women regarding alleged assaults against Weinstein was unfairly prejudicial. Similar testimony led to his conviction being overturned in New York, where the 72-year-old is being imprisoned while Manhattan prosecutors prepare to retrial him.

“The introduction of this excessive, cumulative, and remote evidence of prior ‘sexual assaults’ simply signaled to the jury that the Defendant was a bad man who should be convicted of something irrespective of whether the prosecution proved its case,” the brief stated.

Weinstein was charged with sexually assaulting four women in his California trial, but a jury convicted him of only one attack, on Evgeniya Chernyshova, who claimed that Weinstein showed up unannounced at her hotel room during the LA Italia Film Festival in 2013.

Weinstein’s lawyers say that Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench erred in preventing his defense from introducing the jury Facebook messages revealing Chernyshova and the festival’s founder, Pascal Vicedomini, had a sexual relationship. According to the brief, the messages would have revealed that both were lying when they claimed to be friends and coworkers. It would have strengthened defense claims that the victim was not even in her hotel room but was with Vicedomini at the time of the alleged assault.

The reasons are identical to those presented by Weinstein’s counsel in a motion for a new trial, which Lench denied before his sentencing.

Weinstein has since engaged appellate attorneys, including Jennifer Bonjean, a Chicago-based lawyer whose appeal in Bill Cosby’s sexual assault case resulted in his Pennsylvania conviction being overturned permanently.

Weinstein | Vulture Image

Harvey Weinstein Lawyers Argue He Was Denied Fair Trial In Appeal Of LA Rape Conviction

Throughout the trial, Chernyshova only used the name Jane Doe 1. The Associated Press does not normally identify persons who claim to have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Chernyshova did following the trial. She agreed, through her lawyer, to the AP using her identity.

“Weinstein’s appeal makes the same tired arguments that he previously made multiple times, but without success, to the trial court,” Chernyshova’s attorney, David Ring, wrote in an email Friday. “We are confident that the trial court properly assessed the evidence and made all of the required evidentiary conclusions. We are convinced that Weinstein’s appeal will be denied, and he will serve several years in prison.”

According to the defense’s appeals brief, three jurors wrote statements stating they now regret their decision to vote unanimously guilty.

According to the petition, “jurors confirmed that they did not believe the pair were romantically linked and explained that if they had access to such evidence it would have changed their calculus of whether any rape occurred.”

Harvey Weinstein Lawyers Argue He Was Denied Fair Trial In Appeal Of LA Rape Conviction

According to Weinstein’s attorneys, Chernyshova’s lawsuit, which she filed shortly after the ruling, demonstrates that they ought to have been able to determine whether she had financial stakes in the outcome.

Weinstein’s defense attorneys initially submitted a notice of appeal in April 2023 and requested multiple delays before filing Friday’s brief. The prosecution has until August 6 to file its response.

SOURCE – (AP)