A gaunt-looking Harvey Weinstein pleaded with the judge in his upcoming criminal retrial to move the start date forward, even by a week, because “I don’t know how much longer I can hold on” while the fallen mogul remains imprisoned in New York City’s notorious Rikers Island jail.
Judge Curtis Farber on Wednesday morning set April 15 as a trial date after denying a motion by Weinstein to the indictment against him dismissed. With the schedule set, the cancer-stricken Weinstein, seated in a wheelchair, addressed the judge directly.
“I’m asking you, and begging you,” Weinstein said, his voice rising as he appealed for his trial to begin on April 7. “Every week counts. I’m holding on because I want justice for myself. I want this to be over.”
He said that “every day is a struggle” at Rikers, which he referred to as a “hellhole” and a “stain on this city.” He described his surroundings as “medieval” and said he anticipates being sent back to Manhattan’s Bellevue Hospital “any day” because his health is so poor.
Farber said he would consider an April 7 trial date if all lawyers agree.
“Judge Farber demonstrated exceptional responsiveness, and we deeply appreciate his thoughtful consideration of Harvey’s condition and circumstances,” Weinstein’s attorneys said in a statement. “We remain confident in a swift and efficient trial process and firmly believe that Harvey will be fully exonerated.
Weinstein was one of Hollywood’s most influential and visible studio bosses until an era of reckoning ushered in by the #MeToo movement led to his eventual downfall. Multiple women came forward to say that the former Miramax chief had used his power and position to coerce them into sexual encounters. Several of those allegations became the basis of criminal indictments against Weinstein in New York and Los Angeles.
He first was arrested in New York in May 2018, in a remarkable spectacle of a powerful media executive being led away in handcuffs.
The New York Court of Appeals overturned his 2020 felony sex crimes conviction by a vote of 4-3 in April, ruling that the original trial judge, James Burke, should have barred testimony from women whose sexual assault allegations against the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love and Pulp Fiction producer were not part of the original 2018 indictment.
The appeals court ordered a retrial, and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office added “one count of Criminal Sexual Act in the First Degree and Rape in the Third Degree involving two other complaining witnesses for assaults that occurred in July 2006 and March 2013, respectively,” prosecutors wrote in a memo this month opposing Weinstein’s latest motions to dismiss the revised indictment.
Weinstein remains behind bars as he awaits the new trial. His felony sex crimes conviction in Los Angeles still stands, and his health since the revelation in October that he had cancer remains an open question.
Dominic Patten contributed to this report.
