Harvey Weinstein appealed his sexual assault conviction in California after New York overturned his rape and sexual assault conviction, multiple outlets reported on Friday.
The appeal was filed in California’s Second Appellate District. His attorneys claimed that the former movie mogul “stands wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting Jane Doe 1.” Weinstein was convicted in late 2022 in the Los Angeles case where he was found guilty on three sexual assault charges and was sentenced to 16 years in jail.
Weinstein’s legal team argued in the appeal that the former movie producer did not get a fair trial because evidence regarding Jane Doe 1 on the day when the alleged assault took place was excluded. They also said that the prosecution did not disclose Jane Doe 1’s romantic affair and they also included alleged criminal assaults as evidence, that at the time, Weinstein was not charged yet.
“The prosecution’s case as to JD1 was weak and premised, in part, on evidence it knew was false,” his lawyers said in the appeal, according to NBC News. “The jury was misled about JD1’s truthfulness and precluded from considering game-changing evidence that pointed to Defendant’s innocence and contradicted the prosecution’s theory of guilt.”
His attorney also said they were not allowed to cross-examine Jane Doe 1 regarding her finances. They said the jury was “left with another false impression of JD1, namely that she had no financial interest in the outcome of the case.”
“Weinstein‘s appeal makes the same tired arguments that he previously made multiple times, without success, to the trial court,” Jane Doe 1’s attorney told CNN. “We are of the strong opinion that the trial court vetted the evidence appropriately and made all the correct decisions in its evidentiary rulings. We are confident that Weinstein’s appeal will be denied and he will spend many years in prison.”
The appeal on the West Coast comes as Weinstein’s 2020 sexual assault and rape conviction was overturned by New York’s highest court in April in a 4-3 decision.
“We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes,” the court’s decision from late April said. “The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial.”
Shortly after, he was hospitalized for a variety of tests as he was on his way to a New York jail.