The news broke like a bombshell that the New York Supreme Court overturned Harvey Weinstein’s conviction, overturning all the facts in the highly acclaimed case of the MeToo movement.
New York’s highest court on Thursday (25.04.2024) overturned Harvey Weinstein’s conviction on felony sex-crime charges, ruling that the movie producer he did not have a fair trial when convicted of rape and sexual assault in 2020.
It is recalled that 72-year-old Harvey Weinstein is serving 23 years imprisonment in a New York prison for the two sexual assaults on 2006 and 2013 against actress Jessica Mann and film production assistant Mimi Haley. He was given another 16 years after his sentencing in Los Angeles in 2022.
It is not clear whether the decision-bomb it will also get him out of prison, as he has been sentenced in Los Angeles in 2022, to another rape and 16 years in prison.
The sex-obsessed mega-producer Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein, founder of the Miramax production company with his brother, and producer of excellent films, including “Pulp Fiction”, “The English Patient” and “Gangs of New York”, became the face of the movement # MeToo after the emergence of dozens of women who reported sexual abuse.
He was also hospitalized in a “sexual therapy” center.
The court heard her Jessica Man to say she was assaulted by Weinstein in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013.
THE Mimi Haley testified that he forced her into oral sex in his apartment while she was on her period in 2006.
The famous actress from the Sopranos series, Annabella Siorahad accused Weinstein of sexually assaulting and raping her inside her Manhattan home in 1993.
Photo source: Reuters
“It was 55 kilos. He’s 1.80m and 150kg. The accused grabbed her and pushed her on the bed. He pinned her down and raped her.” the prosecutor described. “Annabella remembers that she had no strength to resist. When the defendant got what he wanted, he left, leaving her physically and emotionally damaged.”
The actress testified in court that she felt very confused after the incident.
“I thought he was a good man. I felt confused. I wish I had never opened the door.” After the incident he started to self-harming. She said that she did not admit the event, to herself, as rape nor did she report it “because it is about someone I knew. I thought at the time that rape was something that happens in a dark alley by someone unknown.”
In total, six women took the stand and shared their nightmare.
The costume designer Dawn Dunningthe model Tara Wulff and the actress Lauren Marie Young were among those who testified that they were lured into meeting with Weinstein for business purposes and then either harassed or raped by him.
Weinstein was acquitted in Los Angeles of the charges involving one of the women who testified in New York.
The New York Times article that started it
It all started thanks to two courageous journalists of New York Timesthe Jody Cantor and Megan Tuiwhich brought to light the much-vaunted Weinstein case on the 5th October 2017.
The newspaper revealed that the film producer sexually harassed women for more than three decades.
Beginning their investigation into sexual abuse cases, nothing could have predicted that they would come face-to-face with the most powerful man in Hollywood and shed light on one of the biggest and most well-hidden scandals.
For months, Jodi Cantor and Megan Toye have been in contact with famous actors, former Weinstein employees and other sources, learning that what was being discussed quietly and behind closed doors about the “king” of cinema, was very true.
In fact, some of these women who had suffered abuse wanted to denounce him, but in the end they had come to an out-of-court settlement with him.
The two female journalists knew that there was smoke surrounding the Weinstein name since 2000 but they didn’t have enough evidence.
After all, Rose McGowan, actor and writer, in 2016 he revealed on Twitter that he had been the victim of rape by the boss of a production company, but without naming…
The two women, with a lot of effort and facing the powerful Weinstein’s lawyers as well as himself, finally managed to sign the infamous article “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades” (“Harvey Weinstein bribed sexual harassment accusers for decades”).
After the first New York Times revelations, the producer saw his supporters abandon him.
The board of directors of his company, The Weinstein Company, his wife… He is now alone.
A few days later follows another article about Weinstein’s works and days.
THE Roman Farrow, son of Mia Farrow and Woody Allen, but also a journalist of “New Yorker,” he began writing about Weinstein’s actions, citing three women which he was accused of rape and four more for sexual attack.
In fact, Farrow had one on his hands audio document from 2015in which the mega-producer tries to convince a model of Filipino-Italian descent to follow him to his hotel room.
The document in question was sent to Manhattan prosecutors, but then-Attorney General Cyrus Vance chose not to prosecute. Two years later, in 2017, and while the tsunami of complaints against the Hollywood producer has no end, a representative of the prosecutor defended his decision, noting that the evidence they had at the time was “insufficient».
Then, of course, it was revealed that Weinstein’s lawyer had donated $10,000 to Cyrus Vance’s re-election campaign.
Tongues slowly began to be loosened and complaints came down in an avalanche.
Why was it that while everyone in Hollywood knew, no one was talking?
The producer is suspected of sexual harassment and rape that took place for decades, and he managed to silence the victims each time, hiding behind power and money.
Harvey Weinstein, the powerful chairman of Miramax and the Weinstein Company, thought that wealth and fame would protect him forever but now things have changed and he can no longer enjoy the cover of the system.
THE Ashley Judd and the Asia Argento, daughter of Italian director Dario Argento, took the baton next and confessed their own nightmarish experiences, confirming that the Hollywood mogul was faithful to the same steadfast tactics to satisfy his appetites.
THE Patricia Arquette, Angelina Jolie, Mira Sorvino and Gwyneth Paltrow are just some of the famous stars who have spoken out.
Photo source: Reuters
THE Jolie she was just 23 and promoting the movie “Playing by Heart” when Weinstein tried to sexually exploit her in a hotel room.
“I had a bad experience with Weinstein when I was young and as a result I have decided not to work with him again and to warn those who intend to work with him.” he said in an email to The New York Times.
THE Paltrow was sexually harassed by Weinstein in his Beverly Hills hotel room. It was 1996, when he was shooting the film “Emma.”
As she herself stated, he asked her to massage him and then follow him to her room. She refused and left, while reporting the incident to her then partner, Brad Pitt, who asked Weinstein for the change.
“It was brutal. He (Weinstein) called me and he started to open up. He threatened me not to talk to anyone again about what happened.”
Weinstein’s lawyer has resigned under the tsunami of revelations, his wife has left him and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has removed him from its lists.
“My heart breaks for all the women who experienced immense pain because of these unthinkable acts. I chose to leave my husband,” said Weinstein’s wife of 41 years, Georgina Chapman, who decided to leave him after the scandal.
The New Yorker article also mentions other actresses, namely Rosanna Arket and the French woman Emma de Conn.
The two women talk about meetings during which the producer tried unsuccessfully to have sex with them.
After Farrow’s article was published, the New York police tracked her down Lucia Evanswho publicly disclosed that in 2004 Weinstein had forced oral sex on her in his office during a meeting in Manhattan in 2004.
Since many of the complaints related to events that had happened years ago and were therefore time-barred, Evans was the only one who could bring him to justice. So it happened.
In 2018, the tycoon was sent to prison, accused of raping and sexually assaulting two women.
But a few months later, the charges collapsedwhen a police investigator reported that a close friend of Evans claimed she had told him she had consensual intercourse with Weinstein for her career.
She denied it, but the producer was released on $1 million bail, later raised to $5 million, after suspicions that he had deactivated the “bracelet” he was required to wear.
At January 6, 2020 his New York trial finally begins for forcing Miriam Haley, a former TV producer, to perform oral sex in his Manhattan apartment in 2006 and raping hairstylist and actress Jessica Mann in a Manhattan hotel in 2013.
At February 24, 2020is found guilty by the jury and on March 11 his sentence is announced: 23 years in prison and transferred to Wende Correctional Facility near Buffalo.
The 2021the court rules that his company, which had since filed for bankruptcy, must pay the sum of $17 million to women (about 50 in number) who accused Weinstein of sexual assault.
At June 2, 2022, the New York court rejected his claims that the trial court was biased against him by letting women testify about matters unrelated to his criminal acts.
Him October 2022 is back in the dock in a Los Angeles court, facing at least 11 counts of rape, allegedly committed between 2004 and 2013.
Weinstein has denied all the allegations against him and insisted that his relationships with the women were consensual.
More from 80 women accused the Oscar-winning producer of sexual assault and harassment.
The reversal of Weinstein’s conviction is the second major blow of MeToo in recent years after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his conviction Bill Cosby for sexual assault in 2021.
