Harvey Weinstein‘s New York trial date has been set for April 15, but the disgraced movie mogul pleaded for an earlier start due to his recent cancer diagnosis and poor health conditions.
Weinstein addressed Judge Curtis J. Farber during a hearing in a Manhattan court Wednesday morning, asking to push his retrial up sooner than April.
“I can’t hold on,” Weinstein told Farber in court, according to People Magazine. “I’m begging for you to move the date…I want to be out of this hellhole.”
Last October, Weinstein was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer and has been imprisoned on Rikers Island while awaiting the retrial. He claimed he “won’t be there” for the April 15 date and requested the trial start earlier, even a week earlier on April 7.
Last year, the New York Court of Appeals overturned Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction. The appeals court ruled that Weinstein’s original trial committed an error by allowing three additional accusers to testify about their own assault allegations when they should not have been permitted. Their testimonies were prejudiced against Weinstein and didn’t shed any light on the charges he faced; the appeals court vacated the conviction and ordered a retrial.
In September, Weinstein was indicted on an additional sex crimes charge after he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in a Manhattan hotel on one occasion between April 29, 2006, and May 6, 2006. He pleaded not guilty.
More to come…