A judge says Harvey Weinstein is weighing a potential guilty plea to resolve an undecided rape charge and avoid going to trial for a third time in New York. But, amid the plea talk Thursday, the disgraced movie mogul said he knows he was unfaithful and acted wrongly, but he insisted that he „neve.<\/b>
\n\u2014 Harvey Weinstein is weighing a potential guilty plea to resolve a rape charge and avoid going to trial for a third time in New York, his lawyer and a judge said Thursday, even as the disgraced movie mogul insisted he \u201cnever assaulted anyone.\u201d
For now, at least, Weinstein is on course for a retrial as soon as March in the landmark #MeToo-era case. The judge asked defense lawyers to tell prosecutors within two weeks whether Weinstein is planning a guilty plea.
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Prosecutors haven’t offered Weinstein any breaks. But he could plead guilty to the crime as charged, a low-level felony. Defense attorney Arthur Aidala said the 73-year-old Weinstein might do so if assured that any prison time for the rape charge would run concurrently with a sentence he’s awaiting on a separate, higher-level sexual assault conviction, which Manhattan Judge Curtis Farber declined to overturn Thursday.
After asking Farber to hear him out, a pallid but emphatic Weinstein said his \u201cspirit was breaking\u201d after nearly six years behind bars, presently at New York City’s Rikers Island jail.
\u201cI live in constant anxiety, unable to sleep, haunted by the thought that I will die“ in the infamous jail, said Weinstein. He has myriad health problems and is brought to court in a wheelchair.
\u201cI know I was unfaithful, I know I acted wrongly, but I never assaulted anyone,\u201d he added.
The Oscar-winning producer and his lawyers argued that the verdict last June was tainted by infighting and bullying among jurors. The defense contends the tensions amounted to threats that poisoned the process, and that Farber didn\u2019t look into them enough.
\u201cYou witnessed the trial and saw how forces beyond my control stripped me of my most basic right to be judged fairly,\u201d Weinstein told the judge Thursday, imploring him at least to hold a hearing on the jury tensions.
Farber responded: \u201cYou had a fair trial.\u201d
\u201cWhatever took place the jury room was the normal course of deliberations. Deliberations become heated. Sometimes jurors don’t behave in a manner that we would hope, but it didn\u2019t rise to the level of anything improper,\u201d the judge added.
Outside court, Aidala said Weinstein was \u201cnot strongly considering\u201d a guilty plea but was thinking about it for his children\u2019s sake.
The hearing was the latest convoluted turn in the ex-Hollywood honcho’s path through the criminal justice system. His case has spanned seven years, trials in two states, a reversal in one and last year’s retrial, which came to a messy end. Weinstein was convicted of forcing oral sex on one woman, acquitted of forcibly performing oral sex on another, and the jury didn\u2019t decide on the rape charge, which involved a third woman.
The sexual assault conviction carries the potential for up to 25 years in prison. The rape charge is punishable by up to four years \u2014 less than Weinstein already has served.
Weinstein has denied all the charges.
They were one outgrowth of a stack of sexual harassment and sex assault allegations against him that emerged publicly in 2017 and ensuing years, fueling the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct. Early on, Weinstein apologized for \u201cthe way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past,\u201d while also denying that he ever had nonconsensual sex.
At trial, Weinstein’s lawyers argued that the women willingly accepted his advances in hopes of getting work in various capacities in show business, then falsely accused him to net settlement funds and attention.
Weinstein, who is being held in New York, also is appealing a rape conviction in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n