Harvey Weinstein’s Manhattan sex crimes retrial kicks off Tuesday — with a new witness set to accuse the disgraced movie mogul of forcing her into a sick encounter at a Manhattan hotel.
Three accusers in total will confront the jailed “Pulp Fiction” producer — whose 2020 conviction at the height of the #MeToo movement was overturned on appeal — at a trial set to last more than a month.
Two of the women, Miriam “Mimi” Haley and Jessica Mann, will take the stand again to describe how they were sexually assaulted by Weinstein, 73, the once-powerful Hollywood kingpin who has been accused by more than 80 women of sexual misconduct.
A third woman, who has not been publicly identified, will testify that Weinstein forced her into oral sex at a Manhattan hotel in 2006, prosecutors say.
Jury selection will start Tuesday.
The former Miramax head had been sentenced to 23 years behind bars in the Manhattan case after a dramatic trial where prosecutors alleged that Weinstein preyed on vulnerable women who sought him out to advance their careers.
But New York’s highest appeals court reversed the conviction in April 2024, finding that the trial judge had unfairly let three additional women testify, even though Weinstein wasn’t charged on their allegations.
Weinstein was separately convicted of rape in California after an Italian model testified that he threw himself on her after appearing uninvited outside her hotel room during an Italian film festival in 2013. The convicted sex pest was sentenced to 16 years in prison in that case but is appealing.
Weinstein is considered the poster boy of the #MeToo anti-sex-harassment revolution. His first trial featured dozens of women dancing and chanting outside the courthouse in flash mob protests against sexual violence.
The former studio head’s attorneys have argued that the public outcry tainted the jury and thwarted Weinstein’s right to a fair trial.
“Five years ago when you guys were here, there were protests, there were people chanting ‘fry Harvey,’ ‘Harvey’s a rapist,” Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala told reporters last week.
“There was #MeToo, Oprah Winfrey, and then, you know, all these people were just so against him. The jurors had to be terrified if they would have acquitted him about pushback from their own families and their own communities,” Aidala added.
“I think that overall has died down. We have bigger things to worry about with stock markets crashing and wars overseas, and I just think that it’s a different environment.”
It’s unclear if Weinstein will choose to testify. The three accusers who the appeals court — in a split 4-3 ruling a dissenting judge ripped as “disturbing” — said unfairly testified at the first trial won’t take the stand this time around.
“We’re going to try the case on the facts and on the allegations, and nothing else,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Curtis Farber said during last week’s hearing.
Weinstein faces up to 25 years in prison on two counts of first-degree criminal sexual act, and four years in prison on a charge of third-degree rape.
His lawyers are expected to argue at trial that the women consented to the sexual encounters.
Additional reporting by Cecelia Catalini
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