Weinstein Weighs Guilty Plea, Says Rikers Is “March to My Death”
Harvey Weinstein addressed Judge Curtis Farber in Manhattan court on Thursday, pleading for a review of his guilty verdict, while asserting that he had “never assaulted anyone.”
“I know I was unfaithful. I know I did wrong. But I never assaulted anyone,” Weinstein said in court. “Your Honor, I ask for a second chance.”
He said being imprisoned at Rikers feels like a “march to my death” and that he is “haunted by the idea that I will die here without being seen or heard.”
His comments came after Farber denied his lawyer, Arthur Aidala’s, motion to vacate the criminal sex act conviction linked to the former Project track assistant Miriam Haley. The motion included post-trial affidavits from a juror who said he was intimidated into returning a guilty verdict.
“I am disappointed in today’s decision. You watched the trial and saw how forces beyond my control deprived me of my most fundamental right to a fair trial,” Weinstein said. He asked the judge to meet the jurors in question.
The former tycoon was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair, as he has been for the past year, holding a copy of Unplugged, the memoir of MTV executive Tom Freston. He then denounced the “isolation” he faces in prison and said his “mental state is collapsing”.
A 12-person jury in Manhattan found Weinstein guilty in June of one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct against Haley and acquitted him of another count against former model Kaja Sokola. The jury could not reach a verdict on the third count of rape, linked to aspiring actress Jessica Mann. This accusation resulted in the mistrial, the jury president refusing to return to deliberate, claiming that he had been threatened by other jurors.
After Weinstein’s speech, Farber asked him to read the 25-page ruling and said he would be happy to discuss it further, but added “I promised you that you will have a fair trial. And a fair trial, I believe you got it.”
Meanwhile, a tentative trial date of March 3 has been set for the remainder of the rape charges, although Weinstein appears to be mulling a guilty plea.
After the June trial, prosecutors vowed to retry Weinstein on rape charges, with Mann’s support. However, Weinstein’s lawyer, Aidala, expressed frustration in court Thursday that the rape charge was going to a third trial, rather than reaching some sort of resolution with the prosecution. He highlighted Weinstein’s age, 73, and his health problems, as well as the 16-year prison sentence he still faces in California.
“We are going to have a third trial for an E as in the case of an elephant crime,” Aidala said. “If his name wasn’t Harvey Weinstein, this case would be over.”
In August, Aidala said Weinstein did not want to plead guilty to the charge, saying he “didn’t want to talk about rape that was associated with him.” However, he suggested Thursday that there could be an opening to a plea “if there was an offer from the court that would be concurrent” to his current sentence.
After speaking with Weinstein and prosecutors Thursday, he said his “client wants more time to think about it.”
The charge is third-degree rape, which is a class E felony in New York and carries a maximum prison sentence of four years. Weinstein was convicted of this charge in 2020, but that conviction was overturned in April 2024.
Weinstein has not yet been convicted for the criminal sex act linked to Haley and still faces an additional 16 years in California, for which he has not yet served any time.
He has worked at Rikers since April 2024, after his original conviction in New York was overturned in 2020. He also spent time at Bellevue Hospital, including during the trial, as the former tycoon was in poor health.
