NEW YORK — The upcoming retrial of Harvey Weinstein is shaping up to be a significantly streamlined version of his previous trial, with a notable addition of a new charge linked to a fresh allegation from a woman not involved in the original proceedings. During a critical pretrial hearing on Wednesday, Weinstein’s legal team emphasized that his prior rape and sexual assault conviction from 2020, which was overturned, is mostly unrelated to the current case.
Weinstein’s attorney, Arthur Aidala, stated, “All the judge’s rulings from the previous trial can be disregarded,” since the highest court in New York annulled those proceedings. Last year, the Court of Appeals vacated Weinstein’s conviction, setting the stage for a new trial in Manhattan. An additional charge was added in September, involving a third accuser. The retrial is scheduled to commence on April 15, with expectations that it could last approximately five weeks.
As the retrial plans began to take shape on Wednesday, Judge Curtis Farber addressed various issues, such as expert testimonies and the terminology for the accusers. Farber permitted the prosecution to call upon Dawn Hughes, a psychologist, as an expert witness to discuss the psychological impact and trauma related to rape and sexual assault. Hughes previously provided expert testimony during Amber Heard’s defamation trial against Johnny Depp in 2022, and in R. Kelly’s federal trial for sex trafficking in 2021.
Furthermore, the judge accepted a defense request to ban the use of the term “survivor” for Weinstein’s accusers. Instead, the accusers will be referred to as “complaining witnesses” during testimony. While Weinstein’s prior convictions were overturned, the acquittals on more severe charges, such as predatory sexual assault and first-degree rape, remain intact. Due to this, Judge Farber instructed prosecutors to ensure that one of the accusers offering testimony refrains from using the word “force” when recounting her alleged assault.
Although the Manhattan district attorney’s office hoped to exclude information about Weinstein’s acquittals and the vacated conviction, Judge Farber suggested that these details might be necessary, contingent on how the accuser’s testimony unfolds. “Does she have to use the word force?” Farber asked, adding that the accuser could narrate the events and allow the jury to infer the details. Most other decisions took place privately in Farber’s chambers, where prosecution and defense spent over an hour discussing sealed matters.
These matters included a prosecution effort to enable two of the three accusers to testify about other alleged encounters with Weinstein and to prevent the introduction of the accusers’ sexual history under New York’s Rape Shield Law. Weinstein, aged 72, attended the hearing in person, arriving in a wheelchair with a suit and documents. Before public elements of the hearing resumed, Farber addressed another postponed issue due to the sealed discussions. During his last appearance in January, Weinstein requested an expedited retrial, citing health issues and jail conditions.
The retrial involves charges of Weinstein forcibly performing oral sex on a production assistant in 2006 and raping an aspiring actress in 2013. The recent charge from September accuses him of a similar crime against another woman in a Manhattan hotel in 2006. Prosecutors stated this woman was not part of the initial case but stepped forward days before Weinstein’s first trial began. They decided to pursue the charges after his original conviction was overturned. In October, Judge Farber combined the new and existing charges into one trial.
Weinstein’s defense argues that the delay in bringing the additional charge has been prejudicial. They imply that not including this allegation in the first trial was strategic, should the conviction be overturned. Weinstein has consistently denied all accusations of rape and sexual assault against him. When vacating the conviction, the Court of Appeals highlighted that the initial trial’s judge permitted testimonies from women not directly involved in the case. That judge, James M. Burke, is no longer on the bench, and similar testimonies will be excluded from the retrial. In Los Angeles in 2022, Weinstein received another conviction for rape, resulting in a 16-year prison sentence, which he is appealing, claiming an unfair trial.