Until a state court determines whether to extradite Harvey Weinstein to California to begin serving prison time for a rape conviction there, he will remain locked up in New York to await a retrial on similar charges, a judge said Thursday.
The disgraced movie mogul is in no rush to return to Hollywood. Weinstein denied his consent for California’s extradition request during a brief hearing in Queens Criminal Court and will remain behind bars in New York for at least another 90 days.
Prosecutors said they plan to retry Harvey, whose New York conviction was overturned in the fall.
California authorities have requested that New York City law enforcement officials bring Weinstein, 72, back to the West Coast, where he was also convicted on rape charges, to start serving his sentence there in advance of his new Manhattan trial.
Weinstein was wheeled into the Queens courtroom more than an hour after he was scheduled to appear Wednesday. Wearing a suit and tie, he crouched in a wheelchair. His skin looked pale as he gazed furtively around the courtroom.
He did not speak in court beyond answering yes and no questions.
He was ordered held without bail on Rikers Island on the basis of a fugitive warrant out of California at least until he appears in court here again on Aug. 7. Weinstein was moved to an infirmary at Rikers Island late Monday from Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.
“They are not in a position to extradite Weinstein right now because they have not done what they needed to do,” Diana Fabi Samson, one of Weinstein’s lawyers, said outside court.
Fabi Samson said she also wanted to clarify some of the legal language.
“He’s not a fugitive in the colloquial sense of the word — that’s just the language they use,” she said. “Our main concern is that Mr. Weinstein is here in New York so that we can prepare for the trial.”
“He is holding up as well as he can be under the circumstances of being incarcerated and having the health issues,” she added.
The decision to retry Weinstein was announced earlier this month at a Manhattan Supreme Court hearing attended by the movie producer and Jessica Mann, one of two women he was found guilty of attacking more than four years ago.
A state Supreme Court jury determined Weinstein was guilty of criminal sexual act in the first-degree and third-degree rape in 2020, finding he forcibly performed oral sex on Miriam Haley in 2006 and committed third-degree rape in an incident with Mann in 2013.
He was sentenced to 23 years in prison, which he was serving at the Mohawk Correctional Facility in Rome, N.Y. — where he returned after facing another trial in California that resulted in his December 2022 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges and a 16-year sentence.
The stunning April 25 ruling by the New York Court of Appeals overturning Weinstein’s New York conviction found the trial court judge, James Burke, shouldn’t have permitted testimony by three women — Taralê Wulff, Dawn Dunning, and Lauren Young — about uncharged allegations of sexual violence.
Thursday’s extradition hearing could have taken place anywhere in New York City, a source said. While Weinstein was convicted in Manhattan, a Queens court was selected because of its proximity to Rikers Island, where Weinstein is currently incarcerated as he awaits his new trial, the source said.
