Harvey Weinstein Asks to Move Trial Out of New York City – The Wall Street Journal

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In papers filed with a New York state appellate court, Arthur Aidala, a lawyer for Mr. Weinstein, cited New York City as “ground zero” for media coverage and #MeToo activism surrounding the case. He said Mr. Weinstein’s court appearances had been marked by a circuslike atmosphere with news conferences on the courthouse steps by victims-rights activists.

“It is safe to say that New York City is the least likely place on earth where Mr. Weinstein could receive a fair trial, where jurors could hear evidence, deliberate, and render a verdict in an atmosphere free of intimidation from pressure to deliver a result that the politicians, the activists, the celebrities and the media demand,” Mr. Aidala wrote.

He said that Suffolk County, on Long Island, or Albany County upstate would be appropriate locations.

A spokesman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment.

Judges rarely grant requests to move trials. Within the past few years, federal judges in New York City denied requests to move the trials of Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera and “Chelsea bomber” Ahmad Khan Rahimi. Both men were convicted.

In the first sexual-assault trial of entertainer Bill Cosby in Pennsylvania, which ended in a mistrial, the judge ordered a jury pool transferred in from another county and sequestered the jury. Mr. Aidala said bringing in jurors from outside New York City wouldn’t be sufficient in Mr. Weinstein’s case. Mr. Cosby was convicted of sexual-assault charges in a second trial.

In advance of Mr. Weinstein’s trial, New York state court officials have planned for additional security and an unusually large jury pool. Court officials anticipate summoning 2,000 potential jurors beyond a normal pool, which would likely result in about 600 extra jurors showing up to court, a state court spokesman said.

Write to Corinne Ramey at [email protected]