Actress Ashley Judd slammed what she called “institutional betrayal” after disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction was overturned on Thursday in New York.
“This is what it’s like to be a woman in America, living with male entitlement to our bodies,” Judd, who was one of the women who went public with allegations of sexual harassment against Weinstein, said during a press conference.
The 56-year-old actress then recalled her personal testimony about the disgraced producer’s illicit advances, which she said transpired in a hotel room while filming the 1997 film Kiss the Girls.
“When survivors tell their stories, they’re exercising a powerful form of leadership that sparks others to join in shared action that catalyzes change,” Judd said.
“We understand that leadership is exercising principles and values in the face of uncertainty, and that’s what we leaders and survivors do,” she added. “This, today, is an act of institutional betrayal, and our institutions betray survivors of male sexual violence.”
On Thursday, New York’s highest court overturned Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction and ordered a new trial after finding that Justice James M. Burke, the judge who originally presided over the case, acted incorrectly when he let the jury hear testimony from some of Weinstein’s alleged victims.
Weinstein was then found guilty and convicted of a criminal sex act in the first degree and third-degree rape. He was subsequently sentenced to 23 years in prison. This conviction, however, did not involve Judd.
“We have so much to offer. We need to be able to contribute without fear, without terror, of violence, of our voices being muted,” she said at the press conference on Thursday.
Last year, Weinstein was also sentenced to 16 years in jail in his Los Angeles rape and sexual assault trial. This sentence was in addition to his 23-year sentence received in New York.
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