The New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, agreed Wednesday to hear his appeal of his 2020 sex crime conviction in Manhattan. Weinstein, 70, was sentenced to 23 years after a landmark trial during the #MeToo movement that found him guilty of criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape. Harvey Weinstein arrives at the state supreme court in New York, February 24, 2020. Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE He has argued that some testimony allowed in the trial was improper and that a juror who wrote a novel about “elder predators” should have been disqualified. Weinstein’s lawyers have until Oct. 18 to file a brief with the court to begin the appeals process, the filing shows. The First Department of the Court of Appeals had previously upheld Weinstein’s conviction, but outgoing Chief Judge Janet DiFiore granted Weinstein’s motion for leave to appeal. In a statement provided to ABC News, Harvey Weinstein said: “I am innocent of these charges and I am so grateful to my lawyers for working hard and smart on this. Their hard work will help me prove my innocence in finally. I look forward to this opportunity to be heard by the New York Court of Appeals.” A representative for Weinstein said in a statement to ABC News that the court’s decision “proves that there is, in fact, merit to the appeal. There was much that went wrong with the trial and the conviction, and Harvey’s lawyers will do whatever it takes to prove his innocence of the charges”. The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which brought the charges against Weinstein, declined to comment Wednesday. The sentence included 20 years for first-degree criminal sexual assault stemming from a charge by former “Project Runway” production assistant Mimi Haley. It also included three years for third-degree rape, stemming from an accusation by Jessica Mann. Weinstein faced a minimum of probation and a maximum of four years in prison for the rape conviction and five to 25 years for the sexual assault conviction. He was found not guilty at that trial of the more serious charges of predatory sexual assault and first-degree rape. Weinstein is currently in jail in Los Angeles awaiting trial there on sex crime charges. He faces four felony counts of sexual assault for allegedly assaulting two women in separate incidents in February 2013 within a day of each other.
