Harvey Weinstein enters court on July 11, 2019 in New York City.
Stephanie Keith | fake images
Lawyers for film producer Harvey Weinstein on Monday filed an appeal of his conviction for rape and another sex crime.
Weinstein, 69, was convicted in February 2020 after a trial in the Manhattan Supreme Court.
He is serving a 23-year prison sentence in the case, which was tried two years after Weinstein’s explosive sexual misconduct allegations ignited the #MeToo movement that has continued to derail the careers of other high-profile men.
His lawyers in a judicial presentation established seven reasons to annul the conviction of the producer of films like “Pulp Fiction”, “Shakespeare in Love” and “Gangs of New York”.
They include the claim that Weinstein was denied the right to be tried by an impartial jury when the trial judge denied his challenge to exclude a potential juror who had written an autobiographical book on “the depredations of older men against younger women and who lied about the content of the book during the “jury selection.”
The attorneys also argued that Weinstein was denied his right to a fair trial because defense experts were unable to testify on certain matters and that he received “a sentence that was harsh and excessive.”
The appeal is filed with the Appellate Division of the Manhattan Supreme Court.
“We have submitted a 166-page brief, which describes several serious errors made during the course of the trial,” Weinstein’s attorney, Arthur Aidala, said in a statement to CNBC.
“We are confident that the Appeals Division will find these issues serious enough to require a reversal of the conviction,” Aidala said.
Jurors convicted Weinstein of committing a first-degree criminal sexual act by forcibly performing oral sex with production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006. He was also convicted of third-degree rape for attacking aspiring actress Jessica. Mann in a Manhattan hotel room in 2013.
– CNBC Kevin Breuninger contributed to this article.
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