New York\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n Nearly a week after opting not to retry movie mogul Harvey Weinstein on a rape charge, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg told CNN in an exclusive interview Wednesday that legislators will have to act to help survivors of sexual assault get their justice.\n <\/p>\n
\n Bragg wants prosecutors to be able to include testimony about previous \u201cbad acts\u201d against defendants so that all accusers\u2019 voices can be heard. That\u2019s what his office did when it won a conviction of Weinstein in 2020, in a seismic moment for the #MeToo movement and survivors of sexual abuse.\n <\/p>\n
\n The New York Court of Appeals overturned<\/a> the conviction in 2024, ruling that testimony of witnesses who said Weinstein used his Hollywood influence to take advantage of them was \u201cerroneously admitted.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Last month Bragg dropped<\/a> any plan for a fourth trial on a rape charge when the accuser said she could not endure going to court again.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019re hard at work with members of the legislature to address and change the law,\u201d Bragg said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t get it done this year, but we tried, and we\u2019ll be back again next year trying to change the law \u2026 to allow for more evidence like that to come in.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Coordinated bills introduced<\/a> in the New York State Assembly and Senate would amend state criminal law to allow evidence of other crimes or acts to prove matters such as motive, intent and planning. Neither received votes in committee or on the floor this session, according to the state legislature website.\n <\/p>\n \n Future cases could be at risk without changes, Bragg said, and the system did not honor the survivors of Weinstein\u2019s alleged assaults who testified, though they were not part of specific charges against him.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe had survivors who came forward, testified, opened themselves up to 12 strangers in the jury box and the eyes of America, and that testimony was set aside.\u201d Bragg said. \u201cOur system said, \u2018That\u2019s not relevant here.\u2019 I understand how that\u2019s hurtful, poignantly so, and in the legal circles that hasn\u2019t gotten enough attention.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Bragg did initiate a new prosecution on three charges related to three accusers after Weinstein\u2019s conviction was overturned.\n <\/p>\n \n In the retrial, Weinstein was convicted<\/a> of one criminal sex act charge but acquitted of another. The judge declared a mistrial on the rape charge when the jury refused to keep deliberating. The rape charge went to a third trial but the jury deadlocked and a mistrial was again declared<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Bragg decided not to try<\/a> Weinstein for the fourth time after consulting with accuser Jessica Mann, who did not wish to testify again.\n <\/p>\n \n Mann, who waived the anonymity CNN and others generally give to those making accusations of sexual assault, wrote a letter to the court saying, \u201cIt was clear to me at this last trial I could no longer endure going through this.\u201d She said taking the stand to detail her accusation that Weinstein raped her in a New York hotel in March 2013 brought \u201cdeeper re-traumatization and additional trauma.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIn the process of court I have been fragmented, silenced, defamed and traumatized,\u201d she wrote.\n <\/p>\n \n Bragg said Mann\u2019s letter was \u201csobering and heartbreaking.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI thought it was great to hear her in her own voice,\u201d he told Wagmeister. \u201cSo much of this process is lawyers talking, a judge talking, we hear from jurors, we hear from witnesses, and to have her unfiltered \u2026 I thought that was important. The decision on whether to do this again, she was at the center of it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n He said his office was focused on survivors. \u201cJessica Mann has testified three times at trial, twice at grand jury \u2014 very, very challenging, and that\u2019s an understatement. And so, yes, she was at the center of this decision.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Bragg told CNN he thinks of all survivors when he sees the courthouse where Weinstein and many others have been tried.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThose cases I think are important, the high-profile ones, and I think they may lead to more survivors coming forward, and in that way they play an incredibly important role, not just for individual accountability, but more broadly,\u201d he said. \u201cI do think, though, that we don\u2019t have enough discussion about the people whose names who aren\u2019t heard, the survivors who endure the same types of struggles, who show up time and time again to testify, are cross-examined, made to repeat themselves, don\u2019t feel like they have a voice in the system, and no one knows their name.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n RAINN, which campaigns against sexual violence and runs a hotline for survivors, says<\/a> 98% of perpetrators are never held fully accountable through the criminal justice system.\n <\/p>\n How to get help<\/p>\n RAINN runs the National Sexual Assault Hotline if you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted or abused: \n While encouraging more people to report crimes to law enforcement, Bragg said a trial may not always be the best answer.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe are here to support survivors, however they choose to go forward,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s no one standard response, right? Someone\u2019s response to this trauma is deeply personal, and we are here to support them through however they\u2019re experiencing it, and we do that every day.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The Manhattan DA\u2019s office said<\/a> in April it was investigating an allegation of sexual assault against former Rep. Eric Swalwell, a day after\u202fCNN reported<\/a>\u202fthat a former staffer for the California Democrat accused him of having sex with her when she was unable to consent. Swalwell has denied the woman\u2019s allegations. Bragg would not comment on that case or whether his office was investigating Sean \u201cDiddy\u201d Combs, as is happening in Los Angeles<\/a>, in the wake of his federal conviction on charges of transportation to engage in prostitution.\n <\/p>\n \n Prosecutors are planning to ask for a 20-year sentence for Weinstein when he is sentenced for forcing<\/a> a sex act on a production assistant, the one charge that led to conviction in the retrials.\n <\/p>\n \n But Bragg said there would be no victory lap.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt is impossible to define a win on the back of all that trauma and all that harm,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are no winners here, but I think there are lessons learned, I think there\u2019s accountability, I think there\u2019s support \u2026 One positive development is that the courage of survivors who have the power to come forward, given who he was at that time. I think that laid groundwork for other survivors to come forward.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n New York was the first to prosecute Weinstein, who produced the 1999 Oscar Best Picture winner \u201cShakespeare in Love,\u201d and was once most of the most powerful men in entertainment. The conviction and sentence of 23 years under Bragg\u2019s predecessor Cyrus Vance Jr. was hailed as a turning point<\/a> in the #MeToo movement that began in 2006 for women and men who had survived sexual assault and harassment, especially at the hands of more powerful people.\n <\/p>\n \n Weinstein remained incarcerated despite the New York appeal as he had also been convicted and sentenced<\/a> in Los Angeles to 16 years for rape and sexual assault in 2023. An appeals court upheld that conviction last month but ordered the trial judge to resentence him, The Associated Press reported<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n On Wednesday, a spokesman said Weinstein was in a hospital prison ward having had \u201ctrouble breathing,\u201d though he was \u201cOK.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Weinstein has always denied the sexual assault allegations.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe believe this is the result that should have been reached from the outset, had the grand jury been presented with the full scope of the emails, text messages, and other private communications,\u201d his spokesperson, Juda Engelmayer, said in a statement last week.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Nearly a week after opting not to retry movie mogul Harvey Weinstein on a rape charge,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-284083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n Online chat<\/a> in English and Spanish
\n Call 800-656-HOPE | 800-656-4673
\n Text HOPE to 64673<\/p>\n