Judge Rules Harvey Weinstein Sexual Assault Case Can Move Forward

Harvey Weinstein will face trial for sexual assault, despite his attorneys’ attempts to get his case thrown out against him after a New York judge sided with the prosecutors on Thursday and threw out the defense’s motion to dismiss the case during a brief court session. According to the AP, Weinstein didn’t answer questions as he walked past journalists to get into the courthouse, and also left without commenting.

Weinstein’s team has been leading a campaign to get the case against Weinstein dropped for months, accusing a police detective of acting improperly leading up to his arrest. The detective, Nicholas DiGaudio allegedly pressured one of Weinstein’s accusers into deleting messages on her phone and “instructed a potential witness in the case to keep some of her doubts about the veracity of the allegations to herself,” according to the AP. That led to Manhattan prosecutors dropping one charge against Weinstein in October. The witness did not end up testifying before the grand jury, and prosecutors say the accuser did not delete anything from her phone.

In a court filing, Brafman said: “The only reasonably prudent decision would be to stop this chaos now.” On Thursday, the prosecution responded to Brafman, saying “there is no possibility” that the allegations against detective Nicholas DiGaudio “in any way impaired the integrity of the grand jury or prejudiced the defendant.”

After the judge’s ruling, Brafman described it as a “technical ruling on the law.” Gloria Allred, who represents one of Weinstein’s accusers, asked for others with evidence against Weinstein to “do their duty,” telling reporters there’s “still time for other accusers to come forward.”