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Date: 06-02-2022
Case Style:
Case Number: 15103
Judge: Angela M. Mazzarelli
Court: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Judicial District (Manahatan County)
Plaintiff's Attorney: Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney, New York (Valerie Figueredo, Alice Wiseman and Eleanor J. Ostrow
Defendant's Attorney: New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department
Description: New York, New York criminal defense lawyers represented Defendant charged with criminal sexual acts.
Defendant Harvey Weinstein, a famous and highly successful movie and
television producer, was charged with one count of criminal sexual act in the first degree
against Miriam Haley, and rape in the first degree and rape in the third degree against
Jessica Mann. He was also charged with two counts of predatory sexual assault, based
on his alleged assaults of Haley and Mann, two women who were trying to make a name
for themselves in the entertainment industry. Shortly before trial, the People were
granted permission to include defendant’s alleged rape of Annabella Sciorra, a wellknown actor, in 1993, as an alternate predicate to each count of predatory sexual assault.
As relevant here, the trial featured testimony from Haley, Mann, and Sciorra. In
addition, three other women testified who were burgeoning actors. They alleged that
they too were sexually assaulted by defendant. The People offered their testimony as
Molineux evidence (People v Molineux, 168 NY 264 [1901]). Molineux evidence relates
to crimes or bad acts committed by a criminal defendant that are not part of the pending
case, but which helps to explain the conduct for which the defendant is being tried. Here
the evidence was offered by the People because of the multifaceted nature of defendant’s
relationships with Haley and Mann. These relationships included episodes of
consensual sex, some of which occurred after the alleged assaults, and behavior by
complainants in the days and even years after the charged episodes, that to jurors could
seem incongruent with what would be expected from a victim of a sex crime. The trial
court agreed with the People that complainants’ behavior before and after the sexual
encounters risked masking the fact that the alleged assaults were nonconsensual, and
that the Molineux witnesses placed the incidents in a more accurate context.
See: https://www.nycourts.gov/courts/ad1/calendar/List_Word/2022/06_Jun/02/PDF/People%20%20v%20%20Harvey%20Weinstein%20(2020-00590%20OPN).pdf
Outcome: Judgment Supreme Court, New York County (James M. Burke, J.), rendered
March 11, 2020, affirmed..
Plaintiff's Experts:
Defendant's Experts:
Comments: