1 month ago
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By JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein is weighing a potential guilty plea to resolve a rape charge and avoid going to trial for a third time in New York, his lawyer and a judge said Thursday, even as the disgraced movie mogul insisted he “never assaulted anyone.”
For now, at least, Weinstein is on course for a retrial as soon as March in the landmark #MeToo-era case. The judge asked defense lawyers to tell prosecutors within two weeks whether Weinstein is planning a guilty plea.
Prosecutors haven’t offered Weinstein any breaks. But he could plead guilty to the crime as charged, a low-level felony. Defense attorney Arthur Aidala said the 73-year-old Weinstein might do so if assured that any prison time for the rape charge would run concurrently with a sentence he’s awaiting on a separate, higher-level sexual assault conviction, which Manhattan Judge Curtis Farber declined to overturn Thursday.
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