Harvey Weinstein will face a retrial in November and additional sexual assault accusations.
Manhattan’s assistant district attorney claimed her office was actively investigating other rape allegations against the disgraced media mogul.
Manhattan prosecutors informed a court on Tuesday that they expect Harvey Weinstein to face a retrial in November, with fresh sexual assault allegations filed against the disgraced media magnate.
Assistant district attorney Nicole Blumberg said prosecutors have not yet presented their findings to a grand jury and could not provide a date for when their investigation would be completed.
“The people are still investigating in a trauma-informed matter,” the woman stated. “That is an ongoing process.”
But Weinstein’s lawyer, Arthur Aidala, with his client sitting next to him in a wheelchair, argued the inquiry was a stalling ploy by prosecutors, citing a similar incident prior to the initial rape trial.
“Once again we have the individual and we’re looking for a crime,” according to him. “We’ve got the 1-800-Get-Harvey hotline.”
Ms Blumberg stated that the office is actively pursuing claims of rape committed in Manhattan under the statute of limitations.
She speculated that some prospective survivors who were hesitant to testify during Weinstein’s first New York trial may now be eager to do so.
“There are absolutely no delay tactics on our part,” Ms Blumberg said. “We’re proceeding in the most expeditious manner.”
She said the prosecution intends to go to trial in the autumn.
When questioned by Judge Curtis Farber which month she expected, Ms Blumberg replied, “November would be a realistic timeframe.”
Mr Aidala stated that his client simply wants the trial to begin as quickly as possible, stressing that Weinstein is in his fifth year of incarceration.
“He’s suffering tremendously,” Aidala added, adding that Weinstein has retinal degeneration, “fluid in his lungs” and diabetes that is “through the roof” as a result of his terrible nutrition behind bars.
“He’s basically getting no treatment for any of it,” Aidala told me. “He is not a young man. “He is a sick man.”
“These tactics from prosecutors are just delay, delay, delay,” he declared.
Judge Farber scheduled the next pretrial hearing for July 19.
Weinstein, 72, has claimed that all sexual activity was consensual. He is currently in imprisonment at the city’s Rikers Island jail complex, but he has had medical issues throughout his time in prison.
In April, New York’s highest court overturned Weinstein’s rape conviction, concluding that the trial judge had improperly allowed testimony against him based on allegations from several women who were not involved in the case.
Weinstein, who was serving a 23-year term in New York, was convicted of another rape in Los Angeles in 2022 and remains condemned to 16 years in jail in California.
However, in an appeal filed last month in California’s Second District Court of Appeal, Weinstein’s attorneys contended that he did not receive a fair trial in Los Angeles.