After his second conviction, Harvey Weinstein has employed a brand new authorized workforce to deal with his Los Angeles attraction, after he was discovered responsible by a jury of sexual assault and rape with a decide sentencing him to 16 years.
Weinstein has employed California-based legal professional Michael Freedman, who will work alongside Jennifer Bonjean, the legal protection legal professional who acquired Bill Cosby’s conviction overturned, and can act as Weinstein’s lead counsel for his West Coast attraction.
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Bonjean has change into recognized for defending a few of the most high-profile males accused all through the #MeToo motion. In addition to representing Cosby on his attraction earlier than the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which resulted him being free of jail, she was R. Kelly’s lead legal professional throughout his legal trial in Chicago. She additionally represented Nxivm intercourse cult chief Keith Raniere.
Bonjean’s agency’s web site says she “works tirelessly to reverse the convictions of innocent people wrongly incarcerated.” She has the phrases “not guilty” tattooed on her arm.
Weinstein’s new authorized workforce may even symbolize Weinstein in his civil case towards Jane Doe #1, a European mannequin, who after the trial, publicly revealed her id as Evgeniya Chernyshova. Her testimony, the place she alleged that Weinstein raped and sexually assaulted her in 2013, led to Weinstein’s conviction in Los Angeles. After the trial, Chernyshova filed a civil go well with towards Weinstein for rape, looking for compensation for bodily and psychological ache and struggling, lack of earnings, and the price of medical and psychological remedy.
“The Bonjean Law Group and Jennifer Bonjean herself understand the issues facing Harvey and knows what is needed; not simply the law, but the environment in which we exist now,” Weinstein’s spokesperson, Juda Engelmayer, says to Variety in an announcement. “With this team, Harvey’s appeal in L.A. will be made in a way that not only demonstrates errors in applications of law and possible bias in meting out so-called justice, but will also expose how the proverbial deck was stacked in advance against Weinstein. In addition to the criminal appeal, the firm will bring the facts together in answers to the civil suit filed by a witness whom Harvey insists was never with him in the hotel or anywhere.”
Weinstein was just lately moved again to New York in early April, after the completion of his Los Angeles trial. The decide in Los Angeles ordered Weinstein to serve each sentences consecutively, so if he serves the total jail phrases in each jurisdictions, he wouldn’t be free till 2059 — that’s, if he lived till he was 107 years outdated.
In addition to his L.A. attraction, Weinstein can be presently interesting his conviction in New York the place he was sentenced to 23 years in 2020. The highest court docket within the state of New York agreed to hear his case.
Weinstein is now serving his East Coast jail sentence at Mohawk Correctional Facility within the metropolis of Rome, N.Y., which is a medium safety state jail for males. He had been in L.A. County Jail since July 2021 when he was extradited to the West Coast, however prior to his L.A. trial, he was housed on the Wende Correctional Facility in upstate New York, which was most safety.
Throughout his Los Angeles trial, Weinstein was represented by protection attorneys Mark Werksman and Alan Jackson.
His new authorized workforce is comprised of Freedman of The Freedman Firm, based mostly in Santa Monica, Calif., in addition to Bonjean and Ashley Cohen from The Bonjean Law Group, which is predicated in New York City.
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