{"id":75862,"date":"2025-12-19T20:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T20:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/75862\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T20:09:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T20:09:08","slug":"harvey-weinstein-attorney-points-to-juror-intimidation-in-june-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/75862\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvey Weinstein Attorney Points To Juror Intimidation In June Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHarvey Weinstein<\/a>\u2019s lawyers are focusing on one juror in particular as they push for his New York conviction to be set aside.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tA 12-person jury in Manhattan found Weinstein guilty<\/a> in June of one count of a criminal sexual act in the first degree against former Project Runway assistant Miriam Haley and acquitted him on another count against former model Kaja Sokola. The jury could not reach a verdict on the third count of rape, and that charge ended in a mistrial<\/a> as the jury foreperson refused to return to deliberate, saying he faced threats from other jurors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMinutes after the verdict was reached, Arthur Aidala<\/a>, who represented Weinstein, said he and his team were approached by a juror who said they were bullied into delivering a guilty verdict on the charge pertaining to Haley. Aidala and his team filed a motion<\/a> to vacate the conviction in October, citing post-trial affidavits from that juror as well as one other.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat we\u2019re asking from the judge, at the very least, is just have a hearing,\u201d Aidala said Friday to The Hollywood Reporter.<\/p>\n

\n\tA hearing on the motion was originally scheduled for Friday, but has since been rescheduled to early January due to matters unrelated to the case. At the hearing, Judge Curtis Farber is expected to rule on Aidala\u2019s motion to vacate, and if it is not granted, Aidala is hoping for a meeting between Farber and the juror. Farber could also choose not to hold the meeting and proceed with setting plans in motion for a new trial on rape charge, related to former aspiring actress Jessica Mann.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tProsecutors have pushed back against Aidala\u2019s motion to vacate, saying in a November filing that this kind of testimony does not allow for setting aside a verdict, particularly because they say the affidavits relate to tensions inside the deliberation room, rather than evidence of improper outside influence or racial bias.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cJuror testimony cannot, as a matter of law, be used to impeach a guilty verdict absent extremely narrow exceptions not applicable here,\u201d the filing reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThey added that they believe the juror instructions given by Judge Farber, as well as his subsequent questioning of jurors who raised concerns during the trial, were sufficient.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring the trial, the foreperson approached Farber twice, at first saying jurors were considering<\/a> elements from Weinstein\u2019s past that weren\u2019t being used as evidence in the trial and weren\u2019t part of the charged crimes. Another asked to address the court twice, first saying he had heard jurors discussing another juror in the courtroom elevators, and then asking to be excused from the jury as he did not feel the process was \u201cfair.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tFarber questioned these jurors in open court and also brought them back into chambers to continue questioning. He found that there was not juror misconduct, and allowed the trial to proceed. The juror Aidala now wants to bring in front of Farber was not one of those jurors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWeinstein has not yet been sentenced on the criminal sexual act conviction. The former mogul has been at Rikers since April 2024, after his initial 2020 New York conviction was overturned. He also spent time at Bellevue Hospital, including during the trial as the former mogul has been in poor health. As it stands, Aidala said Weinstein is \u201con the verge\u201d of serving his 7th year in prison, based on jailtime.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI am not well, and I need to spend the remaining days of my life with my family. It is time for me to go home,\u201d Weinstein said a statement this week. <\/p>\n

\n\tStill, regardless of sentencing on the sexual act charge or any possible conviction on rape charge in the upcoming trial, Aidala notes that Weinstein still faces a 16-year-sentence in California, which he has appealed, but for which he has not yet served any time. This will be the key detriment in whether he ultimately gets out of prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s going to hinge on that more than anything else,\u201d Aidala said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harvey Weinstein\u2019s lawyers are focusing on one juror in particular as they push for his New York conviction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[38058,6431,75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-75862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-arthur-aidala","tag-harvey-weinstein","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\/75862","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=75862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}