Harvey Weinstein, Facing New Charge, Returns to Court in New York

Five years after Harvey Weinstein’s New York trial for sex crimes, a watershed moment in the #MeToo era, the disgraced Hollywood mogul will be back in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday for the start of a new trial.

Mr. Weinstein, 73, was convicted in 2020 of rape and criminal sexual act, while the jury acquitted him on three other charges, including accusations that he was a sexual predator. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

The state’s highest court overturned that conviction last April in a fiercely contested 4-3 decision that reverberated through the country as much as the guilty verdict had years before. In their ruling, the judges said that Mr. Weinstein had been deprived of a fair trial when prosecutors were allowed to call witnesses who said he had assaulted them, but whose accusations were not backed by physical evidence and were not the basis for any of the charges against him. The court ordered a new trial.

For many in the legal world, the decision was not shocking — the case against Mr. Weinstein was seen as having tested the limits of New York’s laws. But for victims of sexual assault and advocates who support them, the overturning of his conviction was seen as a setback and stirred fresh doubts about the legal system’s ability to hold influential people to account. And in the years since Mr. Weinstein was originally found guilty, broader worries have grown that the effects of the #MeToo movement on the nation’s culture and politics, from Hollywood to the White House, have faded.

The new trial offers the Manhattan district attorney’s office a chance to reprosecute a person who at one time appeared untouchable, and in a kind of case that was rarely pursued in the past.

For Mr. Weinstein, the new trial is an opportunity to clear his name. He has also been convicted in California on sex-crime charges and faces a prison term there. He is appealing the California conviction.