Harvey Weinstein turned heads Friday after showing up to a court hearing carrying a cane and limping so badly that he needed to be supported by two handlers on the walk back to his SUV once the hearing was over. Over the past year, Weinstein has walked into hearings with a noticeable limp, but his appearance on Friday was perhaps the most feeble-seeming yet.
The disgraced mogul has been charged with five sex crimes by the Manhattan’s district attorney’s office, including rape in the first and third degree (he has denied the claims and pleaded not guilty). On Friday he was in court for a new hearing regarding his $1 million bail. Prosecutors, led by Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon, argued that his bail should be raised to $5 million because he has allegedly racked up 56 violations regarding his ankle monitor, according to New York Magazine. Weinstein, who is out on $1 million bail, wears a two-part monitoring device and has left the signaling part of the device in one place and the other device somewhere else, the outlet noted.
“Here is a man who has run multimillion-dollar businesses and has juggled many, many issues at the same time,” Illuzzi-Orbon argued, per NY Mag. “It defies logic to believe that he cannot navigate taking his device with him when he travels outside his home.”
Donna Rotunno, one of Weinstein’s many lawyers, pushed back on this claim, saying “these violations are really nothing more than technical glitches. Sometimes that two-piece device loses battery and he has to charge it.”
She also later said that Weinstein has been struggling. “This is tough,” she said, per Variety.. “This is tough on anybody going through this and dealing with the scrutiny not only in the courtroom, but in the court of public opinion.” Rotunno also noted that Weinstein had been dealing with back problems, though it’s unclear if that will affect his trial. There is a precedent for physical ailments getting brought into the spotlight; in 2016, for example, Bill Cosby’s lawyers argued during the hearings leading up to his sexual assault trial that the comedian was blind and that the condition would limit his ability to look at and identify certain accusers.
Judge James Burke said Weinstein's bail would not change for now. A new hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday. Weinstein’s trial is set to begin January 6, 2020.
Weinstein has been spotted out and about in New York in the months since his hearings began. The disgraced producer, who fell from power in 2017 after being accused of sexual misconduct by more than 80 women, was most recently seen at an artistic event in downtown New York City in late October. He was spotted sitting and watching Actor’s Hour, a monthly event, where he was heckled by comedian Kelly Bachman, whose blunt, sardonic set went viral online. “I didn’t know we had to bring our own Mace and rape whistles to Actor’s Hour,” she said in her set, referring to Weinstein as “Freddy Kreuger.” One onlooker told Bachman to “shut up” during her set. Other people in the room also later confronted Weinstein but were asked to leave the venue.
Weinstein was also seen in July going to the restaurant Cipriani, a place where he allegedly preyed on women. “I was shocked to see him as he left the restaurant and crossed the street,” said Shelley Z. Ross, the journalist who took the photos of Weinstein, in an interview with the Daily Mail. “He was badly limping, as if recovering from a hip replacement.”
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