Harvey Weinstein Appealing 2020 Rape Conviction

NEW YORK (AP) — New York’s highest court will hear arguments in Harvey Weinstein’s quest to overturn his 2020 rape conviction.

Weinstein’s lawyers on Wednesday will ask the state’s Court of Appeals in Albany to dismiss the disgraced movie mogul’s conviction on charges of rape and criminal sex act.

They argue that the judge in his Manhattan trial trampled his right to a fair trial by “succumbing to the pressure” of the #MeToo movement.

The judge, James Burke, allowed testimony from three women whose allegations weren’t part of the case and ruled that prosecutors could confront Weinstein about other, unrelated misbehavior if he had testified, which he declined to do.

The New York Court of Appeals agreed last year to take Weinstein’s case after an intermediate appellate court upheld his conviction.