Prosecutors in the Harvey Weinstein case in New York complain about defense lawyer’s comments

New York prosecutors have accused Harvey Weinstein’s lead defense attorney of making public statements intended to intimidate a potential witness ahead of the fallen movie mogul’s retrial and asked a judge to take action.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office sent a letter to the judge on Thursday criticizing comments made by attorney Arthur Aidala outside the courtroom on May 1, urging the judge to instruct the defense team “not to make public statements discussing or disparaging potential witnesses in the future. ”

New York’s highest court last month threw out Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, ruling that the trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. In that landmark #MeToo trial, Weinstein was convicted of third-degree rape for an attack on an aspiring actress in 2013 and for forcing himself on a TV and film production assistant, Miriam Haley, in 2006.

Weinstein, 72, has maintained his innocence.

Speaking to reporters about the case after Weinstein’s first court appearance following the ruling, Aidala said she believes Haley lied to the jury about her reason for coming forward, which prosecutors refute. He said his team planned an aggressive interrogation into the matter “if she dares to come and show her face here.”

Haley, who did not attend the hearing, said days earlier that she was weighing whether to testify again in a new trial.

Aidala declined to comment Friday.

Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg, in the letter to Judge Curtis Farber, said the defense attorney violated state rules of professional conduct and “knowingly disregarded his professional and ethical obligations.”

“The obvious intent of his statements was to intimidate Ms. Haley and diminish her cooperation with the retrial of this case,” Blumberg wrote.

Blumberg asked Farber to remind defense counsel of their ethical obligations regarding out-of-court statements and to instruct them to stop making public statements about witnesses “that could materially harm the case.”

Weinstein’s next court appearance is Wednesday. At the May 1 hearing, prosecutors asked for a new trial as early as September. Farber said the trial would take place sometime after Labor Day.

Weinstein, who was serving a 23-year sentence for the Manhattan conviction, was transferred from a state prison to city custody following last month’s ruling by the state Court of Appeals. He was also convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape and is still sentenced to 16 years in prison in California.

Haley said last month at a news conference with her attorney, Gloria Allred, that she didn’t want to go through the trauma of testifying again, “but to go ahead and do the right thing and because that’s what happened, I would consider it.”

Allred declined comment Friday.

Weinstein’s press secretary, Juda Engelmayer, said Friday that prosecutors have engaged in the same type of extrajudicial statements they are complaining about.

“Mr. Weinstein was dragged through an unfair and unconstitutional trial,” he wrote in an email. “And he and his lawyers will continue to speak out in favor of his innocence.”

The Associated Press generally does not identify people who allege sexual assault unless they agree to be identified, as Haley did.

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Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed reporting