Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed an extradition warrant looking for the switch of Harvey Weinstein from custody in New York to California, the place he was beforehand convicted on rape costs.
The transfer follows an April choice by a New York appellate court docket to overturn Weinstein’s rape conviction, although the underlying costs towards him stay. Weinstein, 72, remains to be in custody in New York, the place he’s being held in a medical facility in Manhattan after being hospitalized for a COVID-19 an infection, double pneumonia and different well being situations.
Weinstein’s New York conviction was overturned after appellate judges discovered a state choose erred in permitting three girls to testify at trial regardless of no costs being filed towards the film mogul in reference to their accusations.
Newsom had 90 days after Weinstein’s conviction was dropped in late April to signal the extradition warrant, based on a New York state choose. The writ was signed June 19, and The Occasions requested a replica of the doc from the governor’s workplace Wednesday.
The previous Hollywood titan has been caught up in separate prison processes in New York and California for years since his profession was upended by allegations of rape and sexual assault in 2018.
He was convicted in 2020 in New York of rape and prison sexual assault and was sentenced to 23 years in jail earlier than the conviction was overturned earlier this yr.
In Los Angeles, Weinstein was convicted in 2022 of the forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by a overseas object of an Italian mannequin in 2013. He was sentenced in 2023 to 16 years in jail in California.
The California sentence — coming when Weinstein was 70, in frail well being and nonetheless needing to serve greater than twenty years in New York — appeared unlikely to be served.
However the overturned conviction in New York has raised questions on the place Weinstein will serve his time whereas he awaits a September retrial.
His California conviction remains to be beneath enchantment.
“We’re reviewing the importance of this extradition and the way it will have an effect on standing of his case in California,” Weinstein’s California legal professional, Mark Werksman, mentioned.
Weinstein initially confronted greater than 11 counts of sexual assault stemming from allegations he raped and groped a number of girls in resort rooms in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills from 2004 to 2013.
His California trial included testimony from Newsom’s spouse, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who accused the then-mogul of raping her in a Beverly Hills resort suite in 2005 when she was a struggling actor. The rape “destroyed me emotionally,” she informed the jury.
Siebel Newsom was amongst a number of girls to testify that Weinstein used his affect to isolate them in resort rooms and assault them, in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Puerto Rico or Toronto. The main points of her allegations had not been publicly disclosed earlier than her testimony.
The opposite girls within the case testified anonymously. The Occasions doesn’t identify victims of sexual assault until they’ve spoken out publicly or requested to be recognized. Siebel Newsom accused Weinstein of abuse in a 2017 Huffington Put up essay that ran simply days after main media retailers started publishing details about rape accusations towards the Miramax co-founder. Her involvement within the Los Angeles trial was not extensively identified till The Occasions reported it in October 2022.
Jurors deadlocked on costs primarily based on Weinstein’s alleged assaults on three girls, together with Siebel Newsom, and prosecutors dropped counts associated to allegations made by a fourth girl.
In handing down Weinstein’s punishment, Los Angeles County Superior Court docket Decide Lisa Lench dominated he couldn’t serve his California sentence concurrently with the New York sentence.
Occasions workers author James Queally contributed to this report.
