Harvey Weinstein remained in a New York City hospital prison ward on Tuesday as his lawyers prepare to retry his Manhattan rape case and challenge a similar conviction in Los Angeles.
Last week, New York's Court of Appeals ruled 4-3 that a Manhattan judge "erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts" and wrongly decided that prosecutors could question Weinstein about his past "bad behavior" if he testified in his own defense.
Shortly after his conviction was overturned, Weinstein was transferred to the New York City jail system on Friday and sent to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan for what one of his lawyers, Arthur Aidala, called "a lot of problems."
"He's somewhat of a train wreck, health-wise," Aidala said Saturday.
Manhattan prosecutors have said they plan to retry the case, and his next day in court is set for May 1.
Although his 23-year New York sentence was overturned, he remains in custody because of his 16-year California sentence.
One of his West Coast lawyers said Monday that when Weinstein was tried in Los Angeles in 2022, "every potential juror" knew he'd already been found guilty of similar acts in New York City, according to the Law & Crime website.
"He came into that courtroom with the stamp of convicted felon on his back," Jennifer Bonjean said during an appearance on NewsNation's "Dan Abrams Live." "And they believed that he had been righteously convicted in a fair trial by 12 jurors, of his peers, and that it was done so fairly."
Bonjean also alleged that Weinstein's Manhattan trial was "essentially rigged in the sense that the prosecution cheated by presenting excessive evidence of other bad acts that prevented him from getting a fair shake."
Last week, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said he was "comfortable with our conviction" after New York's highest court last week overturned Weinstein's 2020 conviction and 23-year sentence in the Empire State.
"Our case against Mr. Weinstein is very solid. We didn't use the evidence New York did," Gascón told the Los Angeles Times. "The California law is strong when comes to this kind of evidence."
