Weinstein lawyer says he may walk free after NY conviction tossed

(NewsNation) — Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer successful California says the erstwhile movie mogul could beryllium freed from situation aft his New York rape conviction was thrown out by an appeals tribunal past week.

“The presumption of innocence conscionable didn’t beryllium for Harvey Weinstein from the start,” Jennifer Bonjean, Weinstein’s attorney, said Monday connected NewsNation’s “Dan Abrams Live.”

Bonjean believes the overturned New York condemnation volition interaction his separate California rape case. She said the Los Angeles assemblage that convicted Weinstein of rape successful December was prejudiced by knowing helium was already a convicted felon from the New York case.

The New York Court of Appeals ruled past Thursday that prosecutors successful that lawsuit relied excessively heavy connected allegations of anterior uncharged enactment crimes to found a signifier of misconduct by Weinstein. The divided determination ordered a retrial connected 2 counts of forcible oral enactment and third-degree rape.

In California, Bonjean contends the tainted New York verdict was emphasized to jurors and that cardinal defence evidence was excluded. Three jurors signed affidavits saying they would not person convicted Weinstein if that grounds was allowed, she said.

“This is simply a lawsuit that was intimately balanced,” Bonjean said. “Even conscionable the specified information of a sentencing proceeding … is different happening that we request to consider.”

Weinstein, 72, is presently serving a 16-year condemnation for the Los Angeles rape conviction, abstracted from the now-vacated 23-year New York situation term.

The Los Angeles District Attorney’s bureau said it remains “confident that our convictions volition withstand appellate scrutiny.”