NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein is due back in court in New York on Wednesday for a hearing ahead of his retrial on sex crimes charges stemming from his landmark #MeToo case. Among other things, Judge Curtis Farber is expected to address a request from prosecutors to consolidate that case with a newer charge into a single trial. The former movie mogul was already facing retrial on two sex crime charges after the state’s highest court overturned his 2020 conviction earlier this year.
Then in September, he was hit with a new charge accusing him of another assault. He has pleaded not guilty. Weinstein was convicted on charges - since overturned - that he forcibly performed oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006, and rape in the third degree for an attack on an aspiring actor in 2013.
In the new charge, prosecutors say he forced oral sex on a different woman in a Manhattan hotel in the spring of 2006. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has argued in court filings that holding separate trials would be “extraordinarily inefficient” and waste judicial resources. Prosecutors said the cases have significant overlap as they involve similar criminal statutes, witnesses, expert testimony and documentary evidence.
Weinstein’s lawyers have argued in court filings that the cases should remain separate. They said prosecutors are attempting to “expand the scope” of the court-ordered retrial and transform it into “an entirely new proceeding” b.