Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Thursday by a Los Angeles judge after a jury convicted him of raping and sexually assaulting an Italian actor and model in 2013.
Former film producer Harvey Weinstein appears in court on October 4, 2022, at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Los Angeles, California. A Los Angeles judge is set to sentence the former movie mogul to up to 18 years in prison on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023, after he was convicted in December of raping and sexually assaulting an Italian model and actor during a 2013 film festival.
Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Thursday by a Los Angeles judge after a jury convicted him of rape and sexual assault against an Italian actor and model, furthering the fall of the onetime movie magnate who became a #MeToo magnet.
The sentence, combined with the 23-year sentence he received in 2020 for a similar conviction in New York, amounts to a life sentence for the 70-year-old.
Weinstein, sitting in a wheelchair and dressed in jail garb, addressed Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench directly, saying, “I maintain that I’m innocent. Jane Doe 1 was never raped or sexually assaulted by me.” As Weinstein spoke, the woman he was convicted of raping sobbed in the courtroom.
She had previously told the judge about her pain after being attacked by Weinstein. “I was a very happy and confident woman before that night. “And i valued myself and my relationship with God,” the woman, identified only as Jane Doe 1 in court, said through tears as she stood at a lectern behind prosecutors. “I was optimistic about my future. After the defendant brutally assaulted me, everything changed. There is no prison sentence that can undo the damage.”
Also Read: A man convicted of killing Nipsey Hussle was sentenced to 60 years to life in prison.
Jurors convicted Weinstein of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault against the woman who gave a dramatic and emotional account of him arriving uninvited at her hotel room during a 2013 film festival in the run-up to the Oscars, talking his way in, and assaulting her during a film festival at the trial’s opening in October.
Weinstein was sentenced to eight years in prison for forcible rape, six years in prison for forcible oral copulation, and two years in prison for forcible penetration with a foreign object, for a total of 16 years.
His attorneys asked that she sentence him to three years in prison on each count, with the sentences running concurrently.
“In a 50-year career, Mr. Weinstein did a lot of good for a lot of people,” Weinstein lawyer Mark Werksman told the judge. “He was a man who many famous actors would thank in their Oscar acceptance speeches.”
Weinstein’s age and poor health, according to Werksman, make it unlikely that he will ever see his five children outside of prison.
Throughout Werksman and Weinstein’s remarks to the judge, Jane Doe 1 could be heard crying in court.
“This is a fabricated story. Jane Doe 1 works as an actress. “She can make you cry,” Weinstein, who insisted he had never met the woman, said. “I beg you not to sentence me to life in prison. It’s not fair to me. There are so many issues with this case.”
The jury acquitted Weinstein of sexually assaulting a massage therapist and deadlocked on verdicts on two other counts involving other women.
“Today, justice was served for survivors.” “After the sentencing, the massage therapist, known during trial as Jane Doe 3, issued a statement through her attorney. “No woman will ever have to fear Harvey Weinstein again because he will never be released.”
Also the defense claims Weinstein had consensual sex with two of the women he was accused of assaulting and that two others made up the incidents entirely.
Lench handed down the sentence on Thursday after rejecting Weinstein’s lawyers’ request for a new trial. They argued that the judge erred in excluding from evidence messages indicating that the Italian model had a sexual relationship with the director of the film festival she was attending at the time of the attack.
Read Also: “The Masked Singer” introduces its oldest competitor to date with this episode.
According to defense attorney Alan Jackson, rape shield laws that exclude a victim’s sexual history are irrelevant here because the defense would have used the messages to show that the woman perjured herself and harmed her credibility when she testified that she and the festival director, Pascal Videcomini, were merely friends and colleagues.
“If the jury had known that Jane Doe 1 and Pascal were intimately involved, they would never have believed the story,” Jackson said. “We’re certain they wouldn’t have bought it. Because some of them have stated as much.”
The messages, Jackson argued, would have bolstered defense claims that the woman was not even in her hotel room, where she testified the attack occurred, but was with Vicedomini.
The defense had given the judge affidavits from jurors, two of whom were in the audience for the sentencing, claiming that the evidence had swayed their decision.
Lench referred to the juror statements as “speculation” about how the evidence would have played out, which were not legally relevant.
The two jurors, who only gave their first names, Michael and Jay, told reporters outside the courtroom that they were not there to advocate for either side, but that hearing about the messages may have influenced their decision-making.
The issue will almost certainly be at the forefront of Weinstein’s upcoming appeal.
The prosecution and Weinstein’s lawyers both declined to comment on the sentence.
Typically, the Associated Press does not name people who claim to have been sexually assaulted.
Weinstein faces legal ramifications on both coasts.
Although his appeal in his rape and sexual assault convictions in New York has been accepted by the state’s highest court. Prosecutors in Los Angeles have yet to say whether they will retry Weinstein on the counts on which a jury could not reach a verdict. A hearing on the possibility of a retrial is set for next month.
