Weinstein, Pressing New Accusations of Investigator Misconduct, Renews Call to Dismiss Indictment
The filing by Weinstein attorney Benjamin Brafman included new allegations that police never provided Weinstein's defense team with information regarding an attempt by an unnamed witness in the case to fabricate a story to support her allegations against the former movie mogul.
November 29, 2018 at 06:02 PM
4 minute read
Disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein on Thursday renewed his call for a Manhattan judge to dismiss the five remaining criminal charges against him, providing additional details to support his claim that police misconduct tainted grand jury proceedings and that prosecutors failed to turn over evidence that he had a consensual relationship with one of his alleged victims.
The filing by Weinstein attorney Benjamin Brafman included new allegations that police never provided Weinstein's defense team with information regarding an attempt by an unnamed witness in the case to fabricate a story to support her allegations against the former movie mogul.
It also cited “thousands” of emails between Weinstein and his accusers, which Brafman said had showed that the former movie mogul had engaged in “loving and often intimate conversations” before and after the alleged sexual assaults.
“Simply put, because of the unprecedented and outrageous misconduct already documented in this case, this court should properly give serious consideration to dismissal of this deeply flawed indictment, either for the legal reasons we have provided or so that the integrity of the criminal justice system can be restored,” Brafman wrote in the 51-page document.
Weinstein earlier this month moved to dismiss the criminal indictment after the Manhattan District Attorney's Office dropped one of six charges in the case, amid revelations that New York City Police Detective Nicholas DiGaudio, who led the investigation against Weinstein, did not tell prosecutors that a witness had provided him with an account that contradicted that of Lucia Evans, who claimed that Weinstein forced her to give him oral sex in 2004.
The dismissal of the criminal sexual act charge removed Evans as one of the accusers in the criminal case against Weinstein, leaving Mimi Haleyi, a production assistant who says the producer forced himself on her in 2006, and an accuser who is unnamed in court filings who says that Weinstein assaulted her in 2013.
Weinstein still faces two counts of predatory sexual assault, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. He has requested a hearing on the issues raised in his motion to dismiss.
Assistant District Attorney Kevin Wilson has argued in court filings that the disclosures about the alleged misconduct by DiGaudio do not show that the testimony supporting the criminal sexual act count was false and that it had no bearing on the strength of the remaining five counts.
On Thursday, Brafman alleged that the unnamed witness had tried to persuade a friend to fabricate a story supporting the allegations she was making against Weinstein. When the woman shared that information with investigators, the detective working the case never passed the allegations along to the Manhattan DA's Office, Brafman said.
“As a result of the misconduct unearthed to date, it should be evident to this court that Mr. Weinstein is facing the possibility of life imprisonment based on a flawed and biased investigation and grand jury proceeding intentionally tainted by grave police misconduct and perjurious testimony countenanced by the people and the police department,” said Brafman, of Brafman & Associates.
Attached to the filing were multiple emails between Weinstein and Haleyi that were sent in the years following Haleyi's alleged rape in 2006. Brafman said the correspondences—which Haleyi had signed with wishes of “Lots of love” and “Peace & love”—supported Weinstein's claims that he was engaged in consensual relationships with his accusers.
“I hope this motion will help restore the presumption of innocence and Mr. Weinstein's constitutional right to due process that has been compromised by the extraordinary pressure to prosecute in a case that is now falling apart under a cloud of serious official misconduct,” Brafman said in a statement.
A spokesman for the Manhattan DA's Office did not immediately respond Thursday afternoon to an email seeking comment on the filing.
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