It appears that Harvey Weinstein will live out the rest of his days entangled in legal proceedings. The disgraced Hollywood mogul and convicted rapist is currently serving a 23-year sentence in New York’s Wende Correctional Facility. On Friday his extradition from the East Coast to California, where he faces multiple counts of sexual assault, was delayed once more.
Appearing virtually from his maximum security prison near Buffalo, Weinstein said nothing during the proceeding other than, “Good morning, your honor.” During the hearing, Erie County judge Kenneth Case ruled that Weinstein could be sent to Los Angeles in 30 days. That is, unless Weinstein’s legal team files a new challenge or New York governor Andrew Cuomo intervenes, per The New York Times. (A spokesman for Cuomo did not respond to a request for comment from the Times.) Weinstein has until May 30 before his transfer, which his lawyers plan to appeal again on the grounds of the Oscar winner’s ongoing health issues.
Speaking to Deadline after Weinstein’s recent court appearance, his lawyer Norman Effman told the outlet that he did “intend to file…as quickly as possible.” Mark Werksman, Weinstein’s West Coast attorney, said that his client’s extradition would have to “account for his ongoing medical treatment in New York and the fact that COVID still prevents him from having an in-person trial in the Los Angeles courts for the foreseeable future.”
In the year since his extradition was first filed, Weinstein’s legal team has moved to postpone the proceedings. After multiple COVID-related delays and the filing of a new indictment, Effman argued that the extradition paperwork was out of date earlier this month. (As for Weinstein’s New York conviction for committing a criminal sexual act in the first degree and third-degree rape, his attorneys filed an appeal on April 5.)
Weinstein faces 11 charges in L.A., which carry a maximum sentence of 140 years behind bars. These include four counts of forcible oral copulation, four counts of forcible rape, two counts of sexual battery by restraint, and one count of sexual penetration by use of force. Weinstein’s alleged crimes involve five different accusers for incidents between 2004 and 2013. (Weinstein has denied all allegations of nonconsensual acts.)
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