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Harvey Weinstein, 70, has been convicted on three charges of rape and sexual assault, Variety reported on Dec. 19, 2022. Harvey faced a total of seven charges during the Los Angeles trial: two counts of rape and five counts of sexual assault. The jury acquitted him of one charge and was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on three other charges.
More specifically, the Nine producer was found guilty of rape, forcible oral copulation, and sexual penetration of an Italian model who is known as Jane Doe #1. The assault took place at the Mr. C Hotel in February 2013. Jurors were split on charges based on allegations by Lauren Young and by Jennifer Siebel Newsom (the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom), which included one count of sexual battery by restraint, one count of forcible oral copulation, and one count of rape. Due to the deadlock, Judge Lisa B. Lench ruled a mistrial. Finally, the jury, which consisted of eight men and four women, acquitted Harvey of the felony sexual battery of a massage therapist, identified as Jane Doe #3.
The jury spent 40 hours deliberating over the span of two weeks beginning on Dec. 2 to come to their final conclusion. The charges were based on allegations from four women who said they were assaulted by Harvey between 2005 and 2013 in Los Angeles.
The sentencing date has not been announced as of this writing. Harvey may face between 18 and 24 years in prison. If he were convicted of all seven counts, Harvey would have faced 60 years in prison.
As Harvey awaits his sentencing, he will be staying behind bars for the 20 years left for his 2020 New York prison sentence after he was found guilty of committing a criminal sexual act in the first-degree and third-degree rape. He received 20 years for assaulting a former production assistant, Mimi Haley, in 2006. He got an additional three years for raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013 in a Manhattan hotel. Harvey has been locked up at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown Los Angeles since July 2021 after being transferred from New York. However, in August, The New York Court of Appeals — the state’s highest court — agreed to hear an appeal in 2023.
Harvey pleaded not guilty in both trials and waived his right to take the witness stand. “They played the game,” Weinstein’s defense attorney Alan Jackson said in the closing statements for his second trial about his accusers. “They hate it now, unequivocally, and that hate translated into their testimony.”
The second conviction comes five years after The New York Times and The New Yorker published shocking investigative pieces about several allegations against him starting in the late 1990s and his pattern of abuse. He and his brother were among the most revered film producers in Hollywood at the time, creating iconic movies such as 1994’s Pulp Fiction, 1998’s Shakespeare in Love, and 2002’s Gangs of New York.
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