A California appeals court upheld Harvey Weinstein’s 2022 rape and sexual assault conviction on Friday, but ordered that his trial judge must resentence him in the case.
“We are disappointed by today’s decision and respectfully disagree with the Court of Appeal’s conclusions regarding the fairness of Mr. Weinstein’s trial,” Weinstein spokesperson Juda Engelmayer said in a statement to media on the ruling. “At the same time, the court correctly recognized that his sentence cannot stand.”
Friday’s California appeals court ruling came one day after prosecutors in New York dropped a rape charge against Weinstein after his accuser Jessica Mann declined to undergo a retrial. He remains behind bars for his other New York sexual felony conviction, as well as those in California.
In December 2022, Weinstein was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison in California of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault over allegations from an Italian model known during the trial only as Jane Doe 1.
Last year, Weinstein was additionally found guilty of first-degree sexual assault for forcibly subjecting former “Project Runway” production assistant Miriam Haley to a sex act in 2006. He was acquitted on a second charge of sexually assaulting former model Kaja Sokola, also in 2006.
In the California case, Jane Doe 1 later sued Weinstein in civil court and publicly identified herself as model and actress Evgeniya Chernyshova. She accused Weinstein of coming to her hotel room uninvited and assaulting her during the 2013 L.A. Italia Film Festival. Weinstein’s lawyers sought a retrial while claiming L.A. County’s Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench limited testimony from the film festival’s head.
“The lower court all but gutted Mr. Weinstein’s defense,” attorney Jennifer Bonjean told the appeals judges during April 23 oral arguments, according to the Associated Press.
Of the appeals court’s decision on Friday, Engelmayer emphasized in an email to the AP that it’s “not the end of the appellate process. We intend to seek review in the California Supreme Court because we continue to believe significant legal errors affected the proceedings and warrant further review.”
