72-year-old Harvey Weinstein appealed his conviction for sexually assaulting a model actress in a hotel room in Los Angeles more than ten years ago. His lawyers filed a complaint with the Second District Court of Appeal on Friday a year after signaling their intention for a new trial in the 2022 Los Angeles case.
The model actress is one of four women involved in the case against Weinstein, who was found guilty of sexual abuse charges. sentenced to 16 years in prison in a Los Angeles courtroom in February 2023. Weinstein’s lawyers received a series of extensions from the court over the past year to give them more time to prepare the documents.
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Weinstein was convicted in December 2022 of one count each of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by a foreign object in February 2013, on a woman identified only as Jane Doe No. 1. The jury could not reach a verdict at the time come. unanimous decision on three other charges, including one related to Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a filmmaker and the wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Steven Hirsch/AP
The jury acquitted Weinstein of a felony charge of sexual assault by restraint, involving an alleged attack on a masseuse, Jane Doe No. 3, in 2010, but deadlocked on a lesser charge involving the same woman.
The judge noted that the crime had not been charged, and the prosecutor said in December that it did not intend to move forward with involving that alleged victim.
Prosecutors later said they did not intend to retry Weinstein on the charges in which the jurors deadlocked. Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
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By appealing the conviction, Weinstein is hoping for a similar outcome to the one he got in New York, where an appeals court in April overturned his rape conviction in that state. For this conviction he was sentenced to 23 years in prison. New York prosecutors are expected to retry the case.
