( Fox )
Disgraced former Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who inadvertently spearheaded the #MeToo movement when decades of sexual abuse allegations against him came to light five years ago, lost his appeal Thursday on a rape conviction and prison sentence stemming from a New York case.
The ruling issued Thursday by a five-judge panel in New York’s intermediate state appeals court rejected the former film producer’s claims that the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced him by allowing women to testify about allegations that were not part of the criminal case.
The decision affirmed the milestone verdict in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures — an era that began with a flood of allegations against Weinstein.
Weinstein, 70, is jailed in California, where he was extradited last year and is awaiting trial on charges alleging that he assaulted five women in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills from 2004 to 2013.
Weinstein was convicted in New York in February 2020 of a criminal sex act for forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and rape in the third degree for an attack on an aspiring actress in 2013.
He was acquitted of first-degree rape and two counts of predatory sexual assault stemming from actor Annabella Sciorra’s allegations of a mid-1990s rape.