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Harvey Weinstein has hired Jacob Kaplan, Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos to represent him at his third New York rape trial, court papers filed Tuesday showed, reshaping a defense team that had been led in the courtroom by Arthur Aidala. The trial, which prosecutors had scheduled after a delay from a March 3 start, has not yet been rescheduled, and Weinstein is due in court March 4 for a status conference.
Kaplan, Agnifilo and Geragos take over after Aidala ceded his courtroom role, while the long-licensed lawyer remains focused on Weinstein’s appeals and other pending civil proceedings, according to the court filings described by the Associated Press. Weinstein’s representatives previously argued that the earlier retrial ended in a tainted verdict environment, but a judge said at a January hearing that Weinstein “had a fair trial.”
Kaplan is a former member of Weinstein’s original defense team in 2018 and is expected to take a leading role in his defense at the upcoming third trial. The charge that will be tried involves prosecutors’ allegations that the Oscar-winning producer raped Jessica Mann in a Manhattan hotel in 2013.
The new hires also bring experience from other high-profile cases. Kaplan and Agnifilo are representing Luigi Mangione in parallel state and federal cases in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and prosecutors’ efforts have already been met with results including dismissal of terrorism charges in the state case and barring of the death penalty in the federal case, the AP reported.
Agnifilo and Geragos, meanwhile, represented Sean “Diddy” Combs in a case in which the jury returned acquittals on sex trafficking and racketeering charges, and the jury also returned a split verdict in other counts, according to the AP account. The lawyers are also among the attorneys defending wealthy brothers Alon, Oren and Tal Alexander at their sex trafficking trial in Manhattan federal court.
The defense change comes after an earlier split verdict in the retrial. In a messy outcome last June, Weinstein was convicted of forcing oral sex on Miriam Haley, acquitted of forcibly performing oral sex on Kaja Sokola, and the jury did not decide the rape charge involving Mann before deliberations ended after the foreperson refused to participate further.
Weinstein has maintained his innocence. At a hearing in January, he insisted he “never assaulted anyone” and said his “spirit was breaking” after nearly six years behind bars, according to the AP. The AP said the publication does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Haley, Sokola and Mann have done.
New York’s highest court ordered the third trial after concluding Weinstein was prejudiced by testimony about allegations that were not part of the case. Judge Curtis Farber, who will oversee the third trial as well, rejected Weinstein’s argument that the retrial verdict was tainted by infighting and bullying, telling him: “You had a fair trial.”
Weinstein’s spokesperson, Juda Engelmayer, said the defense team change reflects what he called a strategic shift: “Harvey believes that, after two prior trials on this matter, a recalibrated outlook and strategic approach offers the most effective path forward.” Aidala, in stepping back from the courtroom, also said: “Our work does not end here,” adding that the team would continue to advocate in the appellate courts with confidence that serious legal errors would be addressed and that the “most significant conviction” would ultimately be overturned.
Kaplan, Agnifilo and Geragos are also in the middle of multiple other major matters, including Mangione’s state trial, which is slated to begin June 8 and could affect when Weinstein’s trial proceeds. Prosecutors have said that even without accusers other than Mann, the case could take up to five weeks, while Weinstein faces up to 25 years in prison for the first-degree criminal sex act charge on which he was convicted, and the unresolved third-degree rape charge involving Mann is punishable by up to four years—less than the time he has already served. Weinstein has been behind bars since his initial conviction in 2020 and was sentenced to prison in a separate California case that he is appealing.