Harvey Weinstein, 73, is considering a guilty plea to resolve a pending rape charge and avoid a third criminal trial in New York, his attorney and a Manhattan judge said Thursday, even as the disgraced Hollywood producer denied wrongdoing.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Curtis Farber asked defense lawyers to inform prosecutors within two weeks whether Weinstein intends to enter a plea. A retrial on the rape count remains scheduled for as early as March.
The hearing marked the latest turn in a seven-year criminal case that has spanned two states, produced a conviction overturned on appeal, and become a landmark proceeding of the #MeToo era. Weinstein, held at Rikers Island and using a wheelchair, faces a separate sexual assault conviction whose sentence of up to 25 years Farber declined to set aside Thursday.
Plea terms and conditions
Prosecutors have not offered Weinstein any concessions. Defense attorney Arthur Aidala said Weinstein could plead guilty to the rape charge as filed — a low-level felony — if assured that any resulting prison sentence would run concurrently with the sentence he awaits on his existing sexual assault conviction.
Aidala walked back the significance of the discussions after the hearing. He said Weinstein was “not strongly considering” a guilty plea but was thinking about it for his children’s sake.
Weinstein’s statements in court
Appearing pale and emphatic, Weinstein addressed Farber directly, telling the judge his “spirit was breaking” after nearly six years of incarceration. He said he feared dying at the jail and could not sleep for anxiety.
“I know I was unfaithful, I know I acted wrongly, but I never assaulted anyone,” Weinstein said.
Weinstein also asked Farber to hold an evidentiary hearing on what the defense described as bullying and infighting among jurors at the June 2025 retrial, arguing the tensions rose to the level of threats that poisoned the deliberations.
“You witnessed the trial and saw how forces beyond my control stripped me of my most basic right to be judged fairly,” Weinstein told the judge.
Farber rejected the argument. “You had a fair trial,” the judge said. “Whatever took place in the jury room was the normal course of deliberations. Deliberations become heated. Sometimes jurors don’t behave in a manner that we would hope, but it didn’t rise to the level of anything improper.”
Case background
The June 2025 retrial ended with a split verdict. The jury convicted Weinstein of forcing oral sex on one woman, acquitted him of a separate charge of forcibly performing oral sex on a second woman, and failed to reach a verdict on the rape count involving a third woman. That hung count is the charge now at issue.
The sexual assault conviction carries a potential sentence of up to 25 years. The rape charge is punishable by up to four years — less than Weinstein has already served.
The retrial itself was ordered after the New York Court of Appeals overturned Weinstein’s original 2020 conviction. Weinstein is also appealing a rape conviction in Los Angeles.
Allegations against Weinstein emerged publicly beginning in 2017 and helped fuel the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct. Weinstein has denied all criminal charges. At trial, his lawyers argued that the women had accepted his advances voluntarily in pursuit of entertainment industry work and later made false accusations.