Harvey Weinstein weighs plea on rape charge but insists he 'never assaulted anyone'

NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein is weighing a potential guilty plea to resolve a rape charge and avoid going to trial for a third time in New York, his lawyer and a judge said Thursday, even as the disgraced movie mogul insisted he “never assaulted anyone.”

For now, at least, Weinstein is on course for a retrial as soon as March in the landmark #MeToo-era case. The judge asked defense lawyers to tell prosecutors within two weeks whether Weinstein is planning a guilty plea.

Prosecutors haven't offered Weinstein any breaks. But he could plead guilty to the crime as charged, a low-level felony. Defense attorney Arthur Aidala said the 73-year-old Weinstein might do so if assured that any prison time for the rape charge would run concurrently with a sentence he's awaiting on a separate, higher-level sexual assault conviction, which Manhattan Judge Curtis Farber declined to overturn Thursday.

After asking Farber to hear him out, a pallid but emphatic Weinstein said his “spirit was breaking” after nearly six years behind bars, presently at New York City's Rikers Island jail.

“I live in constant anxiety, unable to sleep, haunted by the thought that I will die" in the infamous jail, said Weinstein. He has myriad health problems and is brought to court in a wheelchair.

“I know I was unfaithful, I know I acted wrongly, but I never assaulted anyone,” he added.

The Oscar-winning producer and his lawyers argued that the verdict last June was tainted by infighting and bullying among jurors. The defense contends the tensions amounted to threats that poisoned the process, and that Farber didn’t look into them enough.

“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 Thursday, imploring him at least to hold a hearing on the jury tensions.

Farber responded: “You had a fair trial.”

“Whatever took place 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,” the judge added.

Outside court, Aidala said Weinstein was “not strongly considering” a guilty plea but was thinking about it for his children’s sake.

The hearing was the latest convoluted turn in the ex-Hollywood honcho's path through the criminal justice system. His case has spanned seven years, trials in two states, a reversal in one and last year's retrial, which came to a messy end. Weinstein was convicted of forcing oral sex on one woman, acquitted of forcibly performing oral sex on another, and the jury didn’t decide on the rape charge, which involved a third woman.

The sexual assault conviction carries the potential for up to 25 years in prison. The rape charge is punishable by up to four years — less than Weinstein already has served.

Weinstein has denied all the charges.

They were one outgrowth of a stack of sexual harassment and sex assault allegations against him that emerged publicly in 2017 and ensuing years, fueling the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct. Early on, Weinstein apologized for “the way I've behaved with colleagues in the past,” while also denying that he ever had nonconsensual sex.

At trial, Weinstein's lawyers argued that the women willingly accepted his advances in hopes of getting work in various capacities in show business, then falsely accused him to net settlement funds and attention.

Weinstein, who is being held in New York, also is appealing a rape conviction in Los Angeles.

Arthur Aidala, an attorney for Harvey Weinstein, center, talks to reporters outside the courthouse in New York, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Arthur Aidala, an attorney for Harvey Weinstein, right, talks to reporters outside the courthouse in New York, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Harvey Weinstein appears in court in New York, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, Pool)

Harvey Weinstein appears in court in New York, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP)

POOL PHOTO: Harvey Weinstein appeared in court today to see if he will have to stand trial again for his sexual assault crimes. Photos by Steven Hirsch /New York Post via AP) Harvey Weinstein appears in court in New York, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool)

Harvey Weinstein appears in court in New York, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (Curtis Means/Pool Photo via AP)

POOL PHOTO: Harvey Weinstein appeared in court today to see if he will have to stand trial again for his sexual assault crimes. Photos by Steven Hirsch /New York Post via AP) Harvey Weinstein appears in court in New York, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool)

POOL PHOTO: Harvey Weinstein appeared in court today to see if he will have to stand trial again for his sexual assault crimes. Photos by Steven Hirsch /New York Post via AP) Harvey Weinstein appears in court in New York, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (Steven Hirsch/New York Post via AP, Pool)

FILE - Harvey Weinstein appears in state court in Manhattan for his retrial, June 11, 2025, in New York. (Steven Hirsch /New York Post via AP, Pool, File)

FILE - Harvey Weinstein appears in state court in Manhattan as jurors return to deliberations on a remaining charge in his retrial on June 12, 2025 in New York. (Christian Monterrosa/Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - Harvey Weinstein appears in Manhattan criminal court during his retrial, June 11, 2025, in New York. (Angela Weiss/Pool Photo via AP, File)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s Artemis II astronauts fired their engines and blazed toward the moon Thursday night, breaking free of the chains that have trapped humanity in shallow laps around Earth in the decades since Apollo.

The so-called translunar ignition came 25 hours after liftoff, putting the three Americans and a Canadian on course for a lunar fly-around early next week. Their Orion capsule bolted out of orbit around Earth right on cue and chased after the moon to nearly 250,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away.

It was the first such engine firing for a space crew since Apollo 17 set out on that era’s final moonshot on Dec. 7, 1972. NASA said that preliminary reports indicate it went well.

NASA had the Artemis II crew stick close to home for a day to test their capsule’s life-support systems before clearing them for lunar departure.

Now committed to the moon, the Artemis II test flight is the opening act for NASA’s grand plans for a moon base and sustained lunar living.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen will dash past the moon then hang a U-turn and zip straight home without stopping on land. In the process, they will become the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth, breaking the Apollo 13 distance record set in 1970. They also may become the fastest during their reentry at flight’s end on April 10.

Glover, Koch and Hansen already have made history as the first Black, the first woman and the first non-U.S. citizen to launch to the moon. Apollo’s 24 lunar travelers were all white men.

To set the mood for the day’s main event, Mission Control woke up the crew with John Legend’s “Green Light” featuring Andre 3000 and a medley of NASA teams cheering them.

“We are ready to go,” Glover said.

Mission Control gave the final go-ahead minutes before the critical engine firing, telling the astronauts that they were embarking on “humanity’s lunar homecoming arc” to bring them back to Earth.

Koch replied: “With this burn to the moon, we do not leave Earth. We choose it.”

The next major milestone will be Monday’s lunar flyby.

Orion will zoom 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) beyond the moon before turning back, providing unprecedented and illuminated views of the lunar far side, at least for human eyes. The cosmos will even treat the Artemis II astronauts to a total solar eclipse as the moon temporarily blocks the sun from their perspective.

While awaiting their orbital departure earlier Thursday, the astronauts savored the views of Earth from tens of thousands of miles high. Koch told Mission Control that they can make out the entire coastlines of continents and even the South Pole, her old stomping ground.

“It is just absolutely phenomenal,” radioed Koch, who spent a year at an Antarctic research station before joining NASA.

NASA is counting on the test flight to kickstart the entire Artemis program and lead to a moon landing by two astronauts in 2028. Orion’s toilet may need some design tweaks before that happens.

The so-called lunar loo malfunctioned as soon as the Artemis crew reached orbit Wednesday evening. Mission Control guided astronaut Koch through some plumbing tricks and she finally got it going, but not before having to resort to using contingency urine storage bags.

Controllers also managed to bump up the cabin temperature. It was so cold earlier in the flight that the astronauts had to dig into their suitcases for long-sleeved clothes.

The contingency urine bags came in handy later in the day. Mission Control ordered the crew to fill a bunch of the empty bags with water from the capsule’s dispenser. A valve issue arose with the dispenser following liftoff, and NASA wanted plenty of drinking water on hand for the crew in case the problem worsened. The astronauts used straws and syringes to fill the pouches with more than 2 gallons (7 liters) worth before pivoting to the moon.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

In this photo provided by NASA, a view of the Earth from NASA's Orion spacecraft as it orbits above the planet during the Artemis II test flight, on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (NASA via AP)

In this photo provided by NASA, an Artemis program patch floating in the International Space Station's cupola, on March 30, 2026. (Jessica Meir/NASA via AP)

Spectators view NASA's Artemis II moon rocket launch from the A. Max Brewer Bridge, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Titusville, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

Spectators view NASA's Artemis II moon rocket launch from the A. Max Brewer Bridge, Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Titusville, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

NASA's Artemis II moon rocket lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39-B Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)