Weinstein’s lawyers argued that the judge deprived him of “his constitutional rights to present a defense and led to a miscarriage of justice.”
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Harvey Weinstein’s legal team contends in an appeal that he was not afforded a fair trial when he was found guilty of rape and sexual assault in Los Angeles in 2022 and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
The appeal was filed on Friday with California’s Second District Court of Appeal following the overturning of his previous conviction and 23-year sentence in New York by the state’s highest court.
The appeal in California argues that the trial judge wrongly excluded evidence showing that the Italian model and actress Weinstein was convicted of raping had a sexual relationship with the director of a film festival that both attended in Los Angeles during the time of the alleged assault.
Weinstein’s attorneys contended that the judge’s actions deprived him of his constitutional rights to present a defense and resulted in a miscarriage of justice.
The lawyers also argued that the jurors in California were unfairly influenced by details of Weinstein’s previous conviction in New York, which was later overturned, as well as by testimonies from women regarding alleged assaults that were not part of the charges. Similar circumstances led to the overturning of his conviction in New York, where he is currently held awaiting retrial.
The appeal document mentioned, “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.”
