Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed an extradition warrant seeking the transfer of Harvey Weinstein from custody in New York to California, where he was previously convicted on rape charges.
The move follows an April decision by a New York appellate court to overturn Weinstein’s rape conviction, though the underlying charges against him remain. Weinstein, 72, is still in custody in New York, where he is being held in a medical facility in Manhattan after being hospitalized for a COVID-19 infection, double pneumonia and other health conditions.
Weinstein’s New York conviction was overturned after appellate judges found a state judge erred in allowing three women to testify at trial despite no charges being filed against the movie mogul in connection with their accusations.
Newsom had 90 days after Weinstein’s conviction was dropped in late April to sign the extradition warrant, according to a New York state judge. The writ was signed June 19, and The Times requested a copy of the document from the governor’s office Wednesday.
The former Hollywood titan has been caught up in separate criminal processes in New York and California for years since his career was upended by allegations of rape and sexual assault in 2018.
He was convicted in 2020 in New York of rape and criminal sexual assault and was sentenced to 23 years in prison before the conviction was overturned earlier this year.
In Los Angeles, Weinstein was convicted in 2022 of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by a foreign object. He was sentenced in 2023 to 16 years in prison in California.
The California sentence — coming when Weinstein was 70, in frail health and still needing to serve more than two decades in New York — appeared unlikely to be served.
But the overturned conviction in New York has raised questions about where Weinstein will serve his time while he awaits a September retrial.
His California conviction is still under appeal.
“We’re reviewing the significance of this extradition and how it will affect status of his case in California,” Weinstein’s California attorney, Mark Werksman, said.
