Prosecutors seek September retrial for Harvey Weinstein after rape conviction was tossed

NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors asked for a September retrial for Harvey Weinstein during a hearing Wednesday in Manhattan, the disgraced movie mogul's first court appearance since his 2020 rape conviction was overturned by an appeals court last week.

One of Weinstein’s accusers, Jessica Mann, was in the courtroom Wednesday and is prepared to testify again, Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg told the judge.

The former actor wants everyone to know that the defendant “may have power” but “she has the truth,” she said.

“We believe in this case and will be retrying this case,” Blumberg added.

Judge Curtis Farber set a May 29 pretrial court date, with the aim of going to trial some time after Labor Day.

Weinstein, wearing a navy blue suit, was seated in a wheelchair and didn’t address the court but smiled and shook hands with supporters in the gallery.

The 72-year-old, who has cardiac issues and diabetes, has been in a hospital since his return to the city jail system Friday from an upstate prison.

In court, his attorney, Arthur Aidala, said he has no concern about his client’s mental abilities, describing Weinstein as “sharp as a tack. As sharp as he ever was.”

Aidala said his client wants to prove his innocence: “It’s a new trial, it’s a new day and his life is on the line.”

In the New York case that is now overturned, Weinstein was convicted of rape in the third degree for an attack on aspiring actor Mann in 2013 and of forcing himself on a TV and film production assistant, Mimi Haley, in 2006. Weinstein had pleaded not guilty and maintained any sexual activity was consensual.

The Associated Press does not generally identify people alleging sexual assault unless they consent to be named, as Haley and Mann have.

Speaking after the hearing, Haley's lawyer, Gloria Allred, said her client still hasn't decided whether she wants to testify at the retrial, noting that doing so at the original trial was traumatizing and painful. Haley was not in court Wednesday, Allred said.

Weinstein was also convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape and is still sentenced to 16 years in prison in California. But he remains in custody in New York and will head back to Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital, where he is expected to remain, Aidala said.

“He’s in constant pain that he’s fighting through,” the attorney said outside the courthouse, adding that Weinstein has nevertheless been reading avidly behind bars, including a book on Abraham Lincoln and Eleanor Roosevelt.

“Harvey Weinstein was used to drinking champagne and eating caviar, and now he’s at the commissary paying for potato chips and M&Ms," Aidala said. “He’s keeping his chin up, making the best of a horrible situation.”

On Thursday, the New York Court of Appeals vacated his conviction in a 4-3 decision, erasing his 23-year prison sentence, after concluding a trial judge permitted jurors to see and hear too much evidence not directly related to what he was charged with.

The ruling shocked and disappointed women who celebrated historic gains during the era of #MeToo, a movement that ushered in a wave of sexual-misconduct claims in Hollywood and beyond.

Associated Press reporter Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.

Attorney Gloria Allred works on her laptop outside a Manhattan criminal courtroom, Wednesday, May 1, 2024, in New York. Harvey Weinstein is due back in a New York courtroom for the first time since his 2020 rape conviction was overturned by an appeals court last week. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Harvey Weinstein appears at Manhattan criminal court for a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, May 1, 2024 in New York. Weinstein made first appearance since his 2020 rape conviction was overturned by an appeals court last week. (David Dee Delgado/Pool Photo via AP)

Harvey Weinstein appears at Manhattan criminal court for a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, May 1, 2024 in New York. Weinstein made first appearance since his 2020 rape conviction was overturned by an appeals court last week. (David Dee Delgado/Pool Photo via AP)

Harvey Weinstein appears at Manhattan criminal court for a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, May 1, 2024 in New York. Weinstein made first appearance since his 2020 rape conviction was overturned by an appeals court last week. (David Dee Delgado/Pool Photo via AP)

Harvey Weinstein appears at Manhattan criminal court for a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, May 1, 2024 in New York. Weinstein made first appearance since his 2020 rape conviction was overturned by an appeals court last week. (David Dee Delgado/Pool Photo via AP)

Harvey Weinstein appears at Manhattan criminal court for a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, May 1, 2024 in New York. Weinstein made first appearance since his 2020 rape conviction was overturned by an appeals court last week. (David Dee Delgado/Pool Photo via AP)

FILE - Harvey Weinstein arrives at a Manhattan courthouse as jury deliberations continue in his rape trial in New York, on Feb. 24, 2020. Weinstein will appear in a New York City court on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

LONDON (AP) — Victims of the U.K.'s infected blood scandal, in which tens of thousands of people were infected by contaminated blood or blood products provided by the public health service, will start receiving their final compensation payments this year, the government said Tuesday.

Officials announced the compensation plans a day after the publication of a report that found civil servants and doctors exposed patients to unacceptable risks by giving them blood transfusions or blood products tainted with HIV or hepatitis from the 1970s to the early 1990s.

The scandal is seen as the deadliest disaster in the history of Britain’s state-run National Health Service since its inception in 1948. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday apologized for the “decades-long moral failure at the heart of our national life."

The report said successive U.K. governments refused to admit wrongdoing and tried to cover up the scandal, in which an estimated 3,000 people died after receiving the contaminated blood or blood products. In total, the report said about 30,000 people were infected with HIV or hepatitis C, a kind of liver infection, over the period.

Cabinet Office Minister John Glen told lawmakers on Tuesday that he recognized that “time is of the essence," and that victims who need payments most urgently will receive a further interim compensation of 210,000 pounds ($267,000) within 90 days, ahead of the establishment of the full payment plan.

He also said that friends and family who have cared for those infected would also be eligible to claim compensation.

Authorities made a first interim payment of 100,000 pounds in 2022 to each survivor and bereaved partner. Glen did not confirm the total cost of the compensation package, though it is reported to be more than 10 billion pounds ($12.7 billion).

But Des Collins, a lawyer representing dozens of the victims, said many bereaved families have not received any payments to date and have no information on how to claim interim payments pledged to the estates of those who have died.

Campaigners have fought for decades to bring official failings to light and secure government compensation. The inquiry was finally approved in 2017, and over the past four years it reviewed evidence from more than 5,000 witnesses and over 100,000 documents.

Many of those affected were people with hemophilia, a condition affecting the blood’s ability to clot. In the 1970s, patients were given a new treatment from the United States that contained plasma from high-risk donors, including prison inmates, who were paid to give blood.

Because manufacturers of the treatment mixed plasma from thousands of donations, one infected donor would compromise the whole batch.

The report said around 1,250 people with bleeding disorders, including 380 children, were infected with HIV -tainted blood products. Three-quarters of them have died. Up to 5,000 others who received the blood products developed chronic hepatitis C.

An estimated 26,800 others were also infected with hepatitis C after receiving blood transfusions, often given in hospitals after childbirth, surgery or an accident, the report said.

The disaster could have largely been avoided had officials taken steps to address the known risks linked to blood transfusions or the use of blood products, the report concluded, adding that the U.K. lagged behind many developed countries in introducing rigorous screening of blood products and blood donor selection.

The harm done was worsened by concealment and a defensive culture within the government and health services, the inquiry added.

CORRECTS FATHER DENNIS TO HUSBAND BARRIE - Cressida Haughton, left, who's father Derek and Deborah Dennis who's husband Barrie died, react outside Central Hall in Westminster in London, after the publication of the Infected Blood Inquiry report, Monday May 20, 2024. British authorities and the country's public health service knowingly exposed tens of thousands of patients to deadly infections through contaminated blood and blood products, and hid the truth about the disaster for decades, an inquiry into the U.K.’s infected blood scandal found Monday. (Jeff Moore/PA via AP)

Infected blood campaigners react as they gather in Parliament Square, ahead of the publication of the final report into the scandal, in London, Sunday, May 19, 2024. The final report of the U.K.’s infected blood inquiry will be published Monday, six years after it started its work. The inquiry heard evidence as to how thousands of people contracted HIV or hepatitis from transfusions of tainted blood and blood products in the 1970s and 1980s. (Aaron Chown/PA via AP)

Victims of UK's infected blood scandal to start receiving final compensation payments this year

Victims of UK's infected blood scandal to start receiving final compensation payments this year