The disgraced Hollywood manufacturer Harvey Weinstein has been sentenced by means of a courtroom in Los Angeles to an extra 16 years in jail for rape and sexual attack.
The jail time period, along side the 23 years he won in 2020 for the same conviction in New York, quantities to a most probably lifestyles sentence for the 70-year-old.
The new sentence got here after a jury discovered him responsible of attacking an Italian actress and style, known handiest as Jane Doe #1, throughout a movie competition in Los Angeles in 2013.
Weinstein, who denied the costs, begged to keep away from being given a lifestyles time period as he appealed without delay to the pass judgement on within the court the place he sat in a wheelchair, dressed in a jail uniform.
“I deal with that I’m blameless. I by no means raped or sexually assaulted Jane Doe #1,” he said.
The woman who Weinstein was convicted of raping sobbed in the courtroom as he spoke. Moments earlier she had told the judge about the pain she felt after being attacked by Weinstein.
“Before that night I was a very happy and confident woman. I valued myself and the relationship I had with God,” she said through tears. “I was excited about my future. Everything changed after the defendant brutally assaulted me. There is no prison sentence long enough to undo the damage.”
In December jurors convicted Weinstein of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault against the woman. At the trial’s opening in October she gave a dramatic and emotional account of how Weinstein arrived uninvited at her hotel room at the festival in the run-up to the Oscars, talked his way in and assaulted her.
Judge Lisa B. Lench sentenced Weinstein to eight years for a forcible rape count, six years for forcible oral copulation and two years for forcible penetration with a foreign object, for a combined 16 years.
Weinstein’s lawyer cited the producer’s age and very poor health, suggesting a long sentence would make it unlikely he would ever see his five children outside of prison.
“Mr Weinstein did a lot of good for a lot of people in a 50 year career, “ Mark Werksman told the judge. ”He was a man that many famous movie stars would thank in their Oscar speeches.”
Jane Doe #1 could be heard crying in court throughout Werksman and Weinstein’s remarks to the judge.
The producer accused the actress of making her story up. “Jane Doe #1 is an actress. She can flip the tears on,” mentioned Weinstein, who insisted he had by no means met the girl. “Please don’t sentence me to life in prison. I don’t deserve it. There are so many things wrong with this case.”
The jury acquitted Weinstein of the sexual battery of a therapeutic massage therapist and failed to achieve verdicts on counts involving two different girls.
“Today, justice prevailed for survivors,” the massage therapist, known during trial as Jane Doe #3, said in a statement issued through her attorney after the sentencing. “No woman has to fear Harvey Weinstein again as he will never leave prison.”
The newest sentence exacerbates the autumn of the onetime film rich person who become a magnet for the #MeToo motion.
New York’s easiest courtroom has agreed to listen to his attraction in his rape and sexual attack convictions there. And prosecutors in Los Angeles haven’t begun to mention whether or not they are going to retry Weinstein on counts they have been not able to achieve a verdict on. A listening to at the imaginable retrial is scheduled for subsequent month.
He will probably be eligible for parole in New York in 2039.
