Harvey Weinstein‘s 2020 rape conviction has been overturned, The Associated Press has reported.
The reason for the overturning is that the Court of Appeals found “the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced the ex-movie mogul with ‘egregious' improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case.”
“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 of Appeals' 4-3 decision said. “The remedy for these egregious errors is a new trial.”
The trial
This all began in 2017 when The New York Times and The New Yorker ran exposés on Weinstein. These reports brought to light several cases of sexual harassment and abuse. With this move, the Associated Press points out that accusers may have to now relive the past.
Additionally, the court's majority added, “it is an abuse of judicial discretion to permit untested allegations of nothing more than bad behavior that destroys a defendant’s character but sheds no light on their credibility as related to the criminal charges lodged against them.”
Since the conviction, Weinstein has been serving a 23-year sentence in a New York prison. However, he will remain in prison as he was convicted on other charges in Los Angeles.
There have been documentaries and feature films made on the subject. Most notably, She Said was released in 2022. The film was an adaptation of Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's 2019 book of the same name. It follows Kantor and Twohey's journey as they wrote their New York Times exposé on Weinstein in 2017. Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan starred as Twohey and Kantor, respectively.
The Weinstein Company
Before the charges, Harvey Weinstein was a producer in Hollywood. He co-founded Miramax in 1979 with his brother, Bob Weinstein, before departing to start The Weinstein Company.
The company was founded on March 10, 2005, and Harvey remained co-chairman until 2017. However, the company has since been dissolved as of 2018.
Throughout his career, Weinstein was the recipient of several awards. He won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love. His other films have received several Oscar nominations. Weinstein also won Tonys for the likes of The Producers and Billy Elliot the Musical.
A fixture of Weinstein's productions was Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino's first four films (from Reservoir Dogs to Kill Bill) were distributed by Miramax. Death Proof was distributed by Dimension Films, an offshoot of Miramax and subsuquently The Weinstein Company. Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight were also distributed by The Weinstein Company.
However, Tarantino's 2019 film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, marked a change for the Pulp Fiction director. Tarantino took the film to Sony, who distributed the film.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was a big hit without The Weinstein Company. It garnered a career-high 10 Oscar nominations for Tarantino and grossed over $375 million at the box office.
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