Harvey Weinstein begs judge for earlier retrial: 'I want this to be over with'
has chronic myeloid leukaemia, diabetes and heart problems, and told the judge he was struggling amid harsh conditions at New York City's Rikers Island jail complex.
"Every day I'm at Rikers Island, it's a mystery to me how I'm still walking," he told the court in Manhattan. "I'm holding on because I want justice for myself and I want this to be over with."
The 72-year-old is facing a retrial after his 2020 rape and sexual assault conviction involving two women was overturned by New York's highest court in April last year. He has always maintained any sexual activity he was involved in was consensual.
At the hearing on Wednesday, Judge Curtis Farber said the retrial would start on 15 April.
However, Weinstein asked him to swap with another, unrelated case the judge has scheduled in March.
The disgraced movie mogul had arrived at the court in a wheelchair more than half an hour after the hearing's scheduled start time. In court, he complained that jail officers had given him the wrong medication and failed to pick him up on time.
"I'm asking and begging you, your honour," Weinstein said. He told the judge he was facing a "serious emergency situation" and wanted to "get out of this hellhole as quickly as possible".
He told the court that at times he finds himself gasping for air and predicted he would soon need to be treated in hospital again.
In December, he was rushed to hospital following an "alarming blood test result".
In court last week, Weinstein's lawyer Arthur Aidala also appealed for the retrial to happen earlier in "the interest of humanity", saying his client was "dying of cancer and is an innocent man right now in the state of New York".
Judge Farber said he would look into starting the trial a few days earlier than planned if time allows, but the decision had been made following consultation with Weinstein's lawyers as well as prosecutors.
The judge also issued a key ruling on the retrial - upholding a separate charge based on an allegation from a woman who was not part of the original case.
Weinstein's lawyers had tried to get the charge thrown out, arguing that prosecutors only brought it to bolster their case with a third accuser, but were unsuccessful.
Despite the New York conviction being overturned, he remains in custody due to another conviction in 2022, for the rape of an actress in Los Angeles in 2013. His lawyers have appealed that case.
Weinstein was one of the most powerful people in Hollywood - the co-founder of film and television production companies Miramax and The Weinstein Company, he produced films such as the Oscar-winning Shakespeare In Love, Pulp Fiction, and The Crying Game.
However, charges were brought after several women went public with allegations about him in 2017, fuelling the rise of the #MeToo movement.
In September last year, prosecutors in the UK dropped two charges of indecent assault brought against Weinstein in 2022, saying there was "no longer a realistic prospect of conviction".
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Divided by Russia's invasion, a Mariupol family's future remains unclear
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Iryna, an elderly Ukrainian woman, along with her husband, Oleg, told ABC News that they spent around three weeks in Mariupol at the very beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, when the Kremlin's army was storming the city, surrounding Ukrainian troops and civilians in it. The couple, along with others ABC News spoke with, have had their families split apart in the years since the full-scale Russian invasion began. In conversations with those who've visited Mariupol after the Russian occupation or plan to return there no matter what, and those who are living abroad, many expressed grief for the city as it once was. Others also looked to the future, wondering how the city and its leadership may change in the years to come. "Remember the Oscars-winning documentary '20 Days in Mariupol?' It was about us and our survival during these days," said Iryna, who along with her husband asked to use just first names for safety reasons. According to her, she was confident that the Ukrainian military was covertly staying in the city, using some abandoned residential buildings to trace the Russian army maneuvers. "We were asking them to stay away from the area where civilians were hiding in the basements, but they were saying that they are just following the orders," said Iryna, complaining that some of the Ukrainian soldiers were very rude with people. But when Russians came, the situation even got worse. According to her, they were doing so-called cleaning of all the residential buildings in the area and people were supposed to leave their doors open. "It was Russian soldiers, possibly, even Kadyrov troops members, who broke the doors to our apartment," she said, referring to National Guard of Russia troops based in Chechnya. At that time Iryna and Oleg were already outside Mariupol -- the family managed to cross the checkpoints, heading to their relatives in Russia. "Our doors were closed, so they just smashed the lock and entered the apartment," said Iryna. Later, she received the video from the apartment made by her neighbors: everything was out of the closets and drawers. "It looked as if they were searching for some money or jewelry," Iryna said. Later, since the apartment remained unlocked, probably some marauders apparently stole all their kitchen appliances, electronics and other valuable family belongings. The couple did not stay long in Russia -- one of their children helped Iryna and Oleg obtain Canadian visas and welcomed them in a newly rented townhouse in Vancouver, British Columbia, in the late spring of 2022. But in less than two years the couple returned to Mariupol -- Oleg insisted that they should live in their own apartment, surrounded by familiar people, who speak their native language. At the same time, Russia did not appear ready to easily embrace the returning refugees: "The border guard in Moscow airport was not even willing to let us into the country -- the officer said to me that if I had moved to Canada I should have stayed in Canada and never come back," recalled Iryna. Despite this hostile attitude, after several hours of arguing, the family was granted the permission to continue their way home, and in a couple of days they reached Mariupol. "It was hard to recognize our city," said Oleg. According to him, the Russians were restoring the residential buildings in Mariupol. Although, some were demolished to the ground, but new ones were built as well. The family's multistory building managed to survive the hostilities, and local inhabitants who had stayed appeared to them to be living in it as if nothing had happened. "For people in Mariupol it is very important to have their own roof over their heads," explained Oleg said, confirming that it is a common thing when people tend to value their own home above safety and some missing conveniences of civilization -- running elevator, water or natural gas. According to him, the city inhabitants were feeling betrayed when it became known that Mariupol's mayor and his administration had left the city in the first days of the full-scale Russian aggression. "Now, these people have no right to criticize the new, appointed by Moscow authorities, who are running the city," he said. Oleg said he now tends to see positive changes in the city: "Mariupol is resurrecting now from the ruins as the Russians are rebuilding it under the supervision of Moscow and, especially, St. Petersburg authorities, since [that] former capital of the Russian empire is Mariupol's sister city," he said. Much of Mariupol was destroyed during the Russian army's two-month assault in the spring of 2022. At least 8,000 residents of the city died amid the siege, according to Human Rights Watch. Many others fled. The couple said they were especially satisfied with the new Russian pensions they received after returning to Mariupol and obtaining Russian passports. The amount of money was incomparably higher than their previous Ukrainian pensions, they said, because the occupiers' administration tends to give more money to former Ukrainian citizens than to the originally retired Russians. "As if they want to persuade the people that there is no other choice than to accept the new, more attractive reality," Oleg said. But the Ukrainian administration of the city was doing pretty much the same in 2014 to 2022, recalled Olga, the couple's daughter, who also asked to use a pseudonym and who moved from Mariupol at first to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and then to Canada. "The city was getting better and visibly nicer every year -- a lot of funds were obviously invested into social infrastructure, cultural events and it was the Russian invasion that destroyed everything," said Olga. Nevertheless, after just one summer spent in occupied Mariupol, Oleg and Iryna left the city once again and, using both Russian and Ukrainian passports, went back to Canada. According to Iryna, they came up with that decision as it was safer to survive winter far from the frontlines, in a peaceful city with warm buildings and running elevators. At the same time, she denies any opportunistic motives: "We are not waiting here for some permanent residency or other legal status in Canada, we are still planning to return home one day," said Iryna. On the one hand, she would like to stay with her granddaughter, but she described Oleg as being very stubborn, saying he is insistent on returning to Mariupol. Others who fled Mariupol are dealing with similar feelings -- feeling the pull of their hometown, but knowing that the city will never be the same while under Russian control. Maria, whose name was also changed at her request for security reasons, a young student of the one of the universities in Vancouver, said she has no plans to return to Mariupol under the Russian occupation. Her big family also managed to get out from the besieged city through Russia, and most of its members live now in Germany. But her grandmother returned to Mariupol after she learnt that her husband had survived the Russian invasion. "When she was going with us to Germany, she was sure that he was killed, as the area he lived in was under heavy Russian shelling," said Maria: "Grandma was hoping to get him out of Mariupol as well, but when he refused, and she stayed with him." Due to her academic contacts and willingness to continue her education in social studies, she went to Sweden for one year and then moved to Canada, although Vancouver itself was some kind of terra incognita for her. Maria has been living in Vancouver since late 2023. "The main difference between Mariupol and Vancouver, as I see it, is the way the everyday life is unfolding there and here. Despite the hard work in Mariupol, I had much more connections with the city, more touching points with it and the people around. Mariupol, as she remembered it, is a city of contradictions in its everyday life: "On the one hand, you have the sea and the beach that symbolize freedom for me in some way, but on the other hand, this freedom was limited to the role of a big industrial center when your whole life was organized around work on these huge factories," explained Maria. For Maria, the whole eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, which is now mostly occupied by Russia, used to be a place for everyone, where anybody could melt into the crowd. "One might feel freedom there in some sense that is hard to feel for me in here, in Vancouver -- it was a feeling, that in order to keep living and stay in touch with the rest of the world you do not have to put in a lot of efforts," said Maria. One of her most beautiful memories of Mariupol, as she described it, was when she was walking along near the drama theater during the last days before the war broke out in February 2022: "That day, there city was covered with a magnificent fog and that picture still stands in front of my eyes." In several days that theater would be destroyed -- possibly by the Russian bomb, despite the hundreds of civilians were hiding in its basement and word "children" displayed in huge letters on the ground in its front. Now, the Russians are trying to restore the theater -- probably, to make it one of many new signs to demonstrate the qualitative transformations in the war-torn city, according to local reports that cite former Ukrainian city officials. But Maria said she is more concerned with the fate of people, not buildings. She tries to spend as much time as possible with her mother, brother and other family members, using every opportunity to fly to Germany. "Maybe, it is because I value our survival in Mariupol so much -- at some point, I was so afraid that my family is going to die there, and I will be the only survivor," she said. The girl is also staying in touch with her grandmother and step-grandfather. Although she communicates with them over the social media almost every day, it is hard for her to understand how it feels to be in Mariupol right now. According to Maria, she often feels the that her grandmother is under pressure to censor herself. "She used to be totally different person -- very vocal about politics, always having her opinion on everything, willing to share her thoughts, arguments, and concerns with others, and now I am witnessing some changes in her," Maria said. For example, her grandmother is justifying a need to obtain a Russian passport to gain access to the health care and social services, said Maria. And when Maria was asking her about the procedures she had undergone, Maria said, her grandmother started answering the question but, at some point, stopped, saying that it might be dangerous for her to talk about it, and she was afraid to reveal some sensitive information. "That is such a contrast to hear almost nothing from a person who used to comment on every political issue," said Maria. But she is not judging her relatives under the Russian occupation as she completely understands the origins of this self-censorship. "In my opinion, it is some kind of individual way to accepting this new reality," said Maria. According to her, people just do not fully understand the risk of living in the city if it stays under occupation. "My grandmother and her husband are considering the possibility of our family reunion and my return to Mariupol someday, but that is only their perspective, their anticipation," she said. Maria insists, that the only chance for them to meet now is somewhere in a different country, where they can go without a Ukrainian passport. "It is hard for them to understand why it is impossible for me to visit them in Mariupol, why I cannot simply return to my native city while it is occupied by the Russians," she said. In her dreams Maria sometimes is back to Mariupol but not to the times of peace before the war: "There are only Russian border guards in my obsessive dreams or my city already under the Russian occupation. It is very difficult to explain why, but I see them quite often as I sleep. For instance, in my dream I am on the train heading to Finland from Germany, but, at some point, the passengers are being told that from now on the train will be going through the Russian territory and that is how I meet Russian border guards once again."
National Geographic
2 days ago
- National Geographic
Alcohol was banned to protect women—but it ended up empowering them
In June 1920, The New York Times reported that William Hartman shot and killed his wife, just after returning from a night of drinking whiskey. It's impossible to know what led to his actions. But stories like his appeared with disturbing regularity in newspapers during the early 20th century, illustrating the very dangers that Temperance advocates cited when pushing for alcohol prohibition. 'We all know that a lot of crimes occur when people are a little loaded or a little high, because there's the disinhibition factor,' says Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist and Prohibition expert. Alcohol consumption has long been linked to increased violence, and studies have historically shown that men are twice as likely to binge drink than women. 'So men would become more drunken and abusive and be more dangerous to women,' she adds. While much has been written about the women who helped repeal Prohibition, less attention has been paid to the complex role women played in its passage. Ironically, the very same legislation that limited their freedoms also opened doors to new forms of empowerment and legal recognition. 'It—in a way—implies that women have rights,' says Peter Liebhold, a Smithsonian curator emeritus. 'It was argued by the Temperance folks that great harm was often done to women by men consuming alcohol. By passing Prohibition, it suggests that women have greater value and therefore, should have higher legal standards.' Though Prohibition didn't grant women direct rights, the act of restricting something for everyone—rather than targeting women alone—subtly suggested a shift toward equality. Members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union destroy barrels of liquor during a Prohibition-era raid. Photograph by NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images Prohibition's impact on women Before Prohibition, saloons and bars were strictly male spaces. In fact, in places like Colorado, it was even illegal for women to enter. But contrary to the intent of the Anti-Saloon League and other 'drys,' the ban on booze created opportunities for people who had never been involved in the saloon scene and liquor trade before, especially women. (Americans knew their booze was poisoned—and drank it anyway.) 'Women were not allowed into the saloons and bars. This was male territory,' says Blum. 'They would meet and gather in the bar and make a lot of policy decisions. Women couldn't even cross the threshold. So, alcohol was part of what was perceived by women as having this powerlessness.' The booze ban defied societal norms and allowed women to transcend their traditional gender roles. No longer protected from alcohol, women began drinking, serving, and even selling it. Discreet liquor containers like this hollowed-out book (left) and garter flask (right) became fashionable among young women seeking to evade search and seizure laws. Photograph by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images (Top) (Left) and Photograph by Bettmann via Getty Images (Bottom) (Right) The rise of female bootleggers As Prohibition took hold, it created unexpected opportunities for women, especially in the underground alcohol trade. Figures like Texas Guinan, a former silent film actress, were scouted by a bootlegger and ended up running some of New York's most infamous speakeasies. With a pistol strapped to her thigh and a drink always in hand, she flipped power dynamics nightly—welcoming guests with her famous 'Hello, suckers!' More than just serving drinks, she sold defiance—and in doing so, she became one of the first women to profit off nightlife on her own terms openly. (Humanity's 9,000-year love affair with booze.) Others like Ether Clark, who was known as 'The Henhouse Bootlegger' for famously storing her moonshine stash in her chicken coop, found careers where they'd be otherwise excluded. Prohibition allowed women to bypass traditional gender roles—such as dressmaking or teaching—and enter new, often illicit, fields like running speakeasy kitchens, peddling alcohol, and even smuggling liquor across borders. But gaining access to these opportunities wasn't without its social costs. The 'lady of the street' label was easily applied to women who deviated from the prescribed norms—whether it was by contracting a sexually transmitted infection, working as a waitress, or, in this case, running a speakeasy. Though accusations of 'prostitution' were often more about social control than actual accusations, they served to push women out of spaces of male power. Still, the secret double life of the 'New Woman,'—independent, assertive, and defying traditional expectations—became a key figure of the Roaring Twenties, signaling a broader cultural shift toward women's independence and self-expression. For example, some restaurants began implementing table service for female customers who would've been otherwise uncomfortable with bar-sitting. But as more women became involved in bootlegging, law enforcement took notice. Police officers were astonished at the number of women they were suddenly arresting, so much so that they started to treat female criminals differently, often to their advantage. In court, there were accounts of judges letting female criminals off the hook. Catching on to this pattern, the mafia actively recruited women. (Meet the female sheriff who lead a Kentucky town through Prohibition.) 'Increasing numbers of bootleggers would use women to help smuggle their alcohol as several states had laws preventing male agents from frisking or otherwise searching female suspects,' according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. 'Creating the urgent need for female law enforcement officers.' And just like that, new jobs were available for women. But this time, they're legal. A group of women drink wine, circa 1930. Though Prohibition made alcohol illegal nationwide from 1920 to 1933, many women defied the ban—drinking socially in private homes, speakeasies, and underground clubs. Photograph by Kirn Vintage Stock/Corbis via Getty Images A subtle shift toward equality Though Prohibition is widely seen as a failed experiment, it laid the foundation for larger societal changes. For decades, women had been laying the groundwork for this shift. The Women's Christian Temperance Union wasn't just an anti-alcohol group, but one of the largest women's political organizations in U.S. history. For reformers like Frances Willard and firebrand hatchet-wielder Carrie Nation, temperance wasn't just about liquor—it was a level to gain social power in a society that denied them the vote, protection, and public voice. When William Hartman murdered his wife in June 1920, the newspaper accounts didn't ask what she'd wanted or wore, only what he'd done. For the first time in U.S. history, lawmakers started paying attention to the dangers women were facing behind closed doors—and responding with policy. It wasn't perfect—far from it. But it was symbolic. And in a country where symbolism shapes law, it was a starting point. As a result, Prohibition's subtle shift toward gender equality laid the groundwork for later advancements in women's rights, from suffrage to labor reforms, which began gaining momentum in the following decades. 'I think that there was a tectonic shift at the time, and prohibition was part of it,' Liebhold says. 'Women start to be recognized in terms of laws, and what follows is a broad culture shift that their place in society goes through. But the journey never ends.'
New York Post
2 days ago
- New York Post
Chris Brown pleads not guilty to two more charges in London nightclub assault case
Grammy-winning singer Chris Brown on Friday pleaded not guilty to two further charges related to the serious beating of a music producer with a bottle in a London nightclub in 2023. Brown, 36, denied the more serious charge of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm at a hearing last month. The singer, wearing a light brown suit, pleaded not guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm to Abraham Diaw at the Tape nightclub in the swanky London neighborhood of Mayfair in February 2023. Advertisement 4 Chris Brown arrives at Southwark Crown Court in London on July 11. ANDY RAIN/EPA/Shutterstock 4 Brown, 36, denied the more serious charge of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm at a hearing last month. AP He also denied having an offensive weapon — a bottle — in a public place during the short hearing at Southwark Crown Court. Advertisement Around 20 fans sat in the public gallery behind the dock for Friday's hearing, with several gasping as the singer of 'Go Crazy,' 'Run It' and 'Kiss Kiss' walked into the courtroom. Co-defendant — Brown's friend and fellow musician — Omololu Akinlolu, 39, also denied actual bodily harm on Friday. The 2023 attack was caught on surveillance camera in front of a club full of people, prosecutors said. 4 Co-defendant Omololu Akinlolu, Brown's friend and fellow musician, also denied actual bodily harm on Friday. ANDY RAIN/EPA/Shutterstock Advertisement 4 Brown leaves Southwark Crown Court on July 11. Getty Images Brown was released in May on bail of 5 million pounds ($6.75 million), which allowed him to start his 'Breezy Bowl XX' tour. Following a series of dates in Europe, he's set to return to North America at the end of July to play in Miami, before moving across the U.S. with a two-night stop in Toronto along the way. Brown, who rose to stardom as a teen in 2005, won his first Grammy for best R&B album in 2011 for 'F.A.M.E..' He earned his second in the same category for '11:11 (Deluxe)' earlier this year.
