NEW YORK — Harvey Weinstein is weighing a potential guilty plea to resolve a rape charge in New York and avoid going to trial for a third time, his lawyer and a judge said Thursday. Weinstein, speaking in court, maintained that he “never assaulted anyone” even as the judge pressed for an answer on the plea question.
For now, the case is still on course for a retrial as soon as March, prosecutors and the defense told the court. The judge asked defense lawyers to tell prosecutors within two weeks whether Weinstein plans to plead guilty, according to the reporting. Prosecutors, the report said, had not offered Weinstein breaks in exchange for a plea.
Defense attorney Arthur Aidala said Weinstein might enter a guilty plea if any prison time tied to the rape charge would run concurrently with a sentence Weinstein is awaiting on a separate, higher-level sexual assault conviction. Manhattan Judge Curtis Farber declined to overturn that Thursday, the report said, after a hearing in which Weinstein asked to be heard.
After Farber asked Weinstein to proceed, Weinstein told the court that his “spirit was breaking” after nearly six years behind bars, the reporting said. Weinstein said he was at New York City’s Rikers Island jail, described health problems, and was brought to court in a wheelchair. He told the judge, “I live in constant anxiety, unable to sleep, haunted by the thought that I will die.”
Weinstein’s lawyers have argued that the outcome of the rape case was undermined by events involving jurors. In court, they said the verdict last June was tainted by infighting and bullying among jurors, and they argued that the tensions amounted to threats that poisoned the process and that Farber did not look into them enough.
Weinstein also addressed the judge directly, telling Farber that “You witnessed the trial and saw how forces beyond my control stripped me of my most basic right to be judged fairly,” and imploring the judge to hold a hearing on the jury tensions. Farber responded: “You had a fair trial.”
Farber added that “Whatever took place the jury room was the normal course of deliberations.” He said deliberations become heated, and that while jurors sometimes do not behave as hoped, it “didn’t rise to the level of anything improper,” according to the report.
Outside court, Aidala said Weinstein was “not strongly considering” a guilty plea but was thinking about it for his children’s sake. The report described the renewed plea discussion as another turn in a case that has moved through multiple stages over seven years, including trials in two states, a reversal, and a retrial last year that ended in a messy outcome.
Weinstein has been convicted in the broader set of allegations for forcing oral sex on one woman and acquitted for forcibly performing oral sex on another. The jury did not decide on the rape charge involving a third woman in the most recent trial, setting up the path toward a new trial date unless a plea resolves the matter. The sexual assault conviction carries a potential sentence of up to 25 years in prison, while the rape charge is punishable by up to four years—less than Weinstein has already served, the report said.
The case grew out of allegations that emerged publicly in 2017 and ensuing years, which helped fuel the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct, according to the reporting. The report said Weinstein early on apologized for “the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past,” while also denying that he ever had nonconsensual sex. At trial, his lawyers argued that the women willingly accepted his advances for opportunities in show business, then falsely accused him to net settlement funds and attention.
Weinstein has denied all the charges, and he is also appealing a rape conviction in Los Angeles, the report said.