Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers oppose effort to combine two sex crimes cases

Harvey Weinstein’s attorneys have submitted a filing opposing a move by prosecutors to combine two sexual crimes cases against the disgraced film mogul.

Manhattan prosecutors have sought to consolidate new charges with ones previously brought against Weinstein so that they could be tried in court together. But in a court document, a response to the prosecutors’ motion to consolidate cases filed Oct. 2, the Oscar-winning producer’s lawyers accused the district attorney’s office of acting improperly and unfairly.

“Having deprived Defendant of a fair trial once,” Weinstein’s lawyers write in a 12-page filing, “the People unapologetically—indeed, unabashedly—seek to do so again by smuggling an additional charge into the case for the improper purpose of bolstering the credibility of the complainant in the 2024 indictment.”

In early 2020, a jury in New York convicted Weinstein of third-degree rape against Jessica Mann, a former aspiring actor, and first-degree criminal sex act against Mimi Haley, a former “Project Runway” production assistant. (He was acquitted of two counts of predatory sexual assault and a count of first-degree rape.) 

But in April, New York’s state Court of Appeals overturned Weinstein’s 23-year prison sentence in a 4-3 decision, blasting the trial judge for allowing women to testify about allegations that were not part of the charges. The court argued the move was “highly prejudicial.”

Then, last month, Weinstein was indicted on one count of sexual act in the first degree. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the charge stemmed from the alleged sexual assault of an unnamed woman in a New York City hotel room in 2006. Bragg’s office signaled that it would seek to link the two cases together ahead of Weinstein’s retrial.

Weinstein pleaded not guilty in both cases. In all, more than 80 women have accused Weinstein of sexual assault or harassment — allegations that inspired the #MeToo movement, a worldwide reckoning with abuses of power across entertainment and other industries. Weinstein has repeatedly denied the claims, insisting the encounters in question were consensual.

Diana Fabi Samson, one of Weinstein’s lawyers, argued that prosecutors should not be able to retaliate against Weinstein, who successfully appealed his case, by charging him with a new crime based on an allegation long known to the district attorney’s office. In the filing, Samson claimed investigators from the district attorney’s office knew about the new accuser as far back as 2019 and allegedly “held this case in their back pocket for years.”

Samson argues the new accuser has changed her stories about her interactions with Weinstein  in civil complaints dating to 2002; in her application for money from Weinstein’s defunct production company; in newspaper articles since 2019; and in interviews with the district attorney’s office.

The new trial was scheduled for September, then pushed to November. Samson says prosecutors say they won’t be ready in time and want to move the trial to January.