Harvey Weinstein Just Got Convicted of Rape All Over Again

Harvey Weinstein is officially a twice-convicted rapist.

Once among the most influential people in Hollywood, the 70-year-old was convicted on Monday of forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by a foreign object, and forcible rape in connection with sexually assaulting an Italian model at a Los Angles hotel in February 2013.

Shockingly, however, the jury was hung on three charges against Weinstein—including sexual battery, forcible oral copulation, and forcible rape. Weinstein was also found not guilty of sexual battery by restraint. Prosecutors originally alleged that Weinstein sexually assaulted four women in Los Angeles between 2003 and 2014.

The verdict came after 10 days of deliberation. As the verdict was being read, Weinstein reportedly folded his hands and pressed them to his head.

Weinstein's spokesperson told The Daily Beast that “Harvey is disappointed obviously, but hopeful as there is a strong case for appeal with this individual's claim.” “He is determined to continue fighting to prove his innocence,” the spokesperson added.

Jane Doe 1 also expressed her thoughts about the verdict—as the only woman whose allegations resulted in convictions—and stressed that Weinstein “forever destroyed a part of me that night in 2013.”

“The criminal trial was brutal and Weinstein’s lawyers put me through hell on the witness stand, but I knew I had to see this through to the end, and I did,” Jane Doe 1 added. “I hope Weinstein never sees the outside of a prison cell during his lifetime.”

Throughout a five-week trial, prosecutors showed how Weinstein used his power in the entertainment industry to lure and assault women—and ensure their silence, at least for a time.

“Who would suspect that such an entertainment industry titan would be a degenerate rapist?” Deputy District Attorney Marlene Martinez asked jurors before they began deliberating.

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Among the women Weinstein was accused of assaulting is former actress Jennifer Siebel Newsom, wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who told jurors the disgraced producer raped her in 2005. Siebel Newsom was one of eight women who took the stand against Weinstein, all describing how they met with him under the guise of career development before he groped, raped, or masturbated in front of them without their consent.

Afterward, several women said, Weinstein would threaten them to stay silent by reminding them of his professional power.

On Monday, the jury could not come to a conclusion about the charges stemming from Jennifer Siebel Newsom's allegations—garnering a mistrial for those two counts. The jury also reached a hung verdict for the sexual battery by restraint of Jane Doe 2.

In a statement, Siebel Newsom stressed that Weinstein is a “serial predator” who will “spend the rest of his life behind bars where he belongs.” Her lawyer, Elizabeth Fegan, added that they are disappointed the jury could not reach a conclusion on Siebel Newsom's charges—but stressed that the former actress will continue to fight for survivors of abuse.

Louisette Geiss, who testified as a supporting witness for Siebel Newsom during the trial and has separately accused Weinstein of sexual assault, told The Daily Beast on Monday that she is “grateful that the world now knows and sees the truth” about the disgraced producer.

“Harvey Weinstein is a predator of epic proportions,” she said, adding that he “messed with the wrong women.” Geiss, however, admitted that she was “saddened and baffled that anyone could not see the reality” of Siebel Newsom’s “account of gross and world-crushing abuse at the hands of” Weinstein.

“That said, all survivors are part of this win today,” she added. “When one of us wins, we all win.”

Geiss also noted that as a witness in the trial, she feels a deep sense of “elation and satisfaction that Harvey Weinstein will hopefully spend the rest of his life behind bars.”

Weinstein was already on the hook for 23 years in New York—where he was convicted of rape just before pandemic lockdowns in 2020—and faces a maximum sentence of 18 years in California prison. That sentence, however, could go as high as 24 years depending on how the jury weighs several aggravating factors.

The latest conviction against Weinstein marks another legal win for the scores of women who have come out against him since the MeToo movement exploded in 2017. It also helps ensure he remains behind bars, as the New York State of Appeals in August agreed to allow him to appeal his conviction there next year.

Two other women who have publicly accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct—but whose allegations were not mentioned in the trial—also expressed their relief over Monday's verdict.

Caitlin Dulany, an actress who accused the producer of sexual harassment and assault in the mid-1990s, told The Daily Beast that while she is “deeply disappointed that the jury could not reach a unanimous guilty verdict on all of the claims,” she is grateful he was found guilty on all charges related to Jane Doe 1 after witnessing her time on the stand.

“I watched Jane Doe 1 literally shake with nerves and cry as she relived her assault,” she said.

Louise Godbold, who says she was also subjected to Weinstein's misconduct in the 1990s and expressed her admiration to those who took the stand, also noted to The Daily Beast: “The fact that [Weinstein] is only charged with some of his crimes illustrates that sexual assault victims are always in an uphill battle to prove that a crime was committed against them.”

Throughout the trial, prosecutors argued that Weinstein used his power “to live his life without the repercussions of his predatory behavior.” During closing arguments, Martinez stressed to the jury how the four women at the crux of Weinstein’s charges had eerily similar accounts—which included his using charm and the promise of career guidance to lure women into a hotel room before turning “aggressive and demanding” and ultimately assaulting them.

“He tried to normalize what he did to me. He made me feel like it was strange for making it awkward like masturbation is something everybody does. Basically humiliating me, like my reaction wasn’t normal,” Jane Doe 3, who accused Weinstein of assaulting her in 2010, told jurors.

To prove this pattern, prosecutors called the four additional women to the stand to act as “bad act witnesses.” While the women were able to share their assault allegations to the jury, their claims were not a part of the criminal charges against Weinstein.

“For this predator, hotels were his trap,” Martinez said. “Confined within those walls, victims were not able to run from his hulking mass. People were not able to hear their screams, they were not able to see them cower.”

In addition to describing an assault pattern, several women also testified about Weinstein’s genitals—which endured severe scarring and alterations after a 1999 surgery for a bout of gangrene.

“His penis was disgusting. It looked like it had been chopped off and sewn back on, like something wasn’t right about it,” Jane Doe 2, who said Weinstein sexually assaulted her in a hotel bathroom in 2013, testified.

Weinstein’s lawyers said throughout the trial that their client was an innocent victim of a changing societal landscape. Often grilling witnesses over their connections with the former producer and ignoring his past conviction, defense lawyers argued that these women had “transactional sex”—only to later regret it.

At one point, defense lawyer Mark Werskman went as far as to suggest that without Siebel Newsom’s current political profile, “she’d be just another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead.”

“The sequel to the casting couch is the #MeToo trial,” Werksman said. “They will play the part of the damsel in distress with this beast. They have to lie to themselves, to you, to this court. Their hypocrisy will be on full display.”

Defense attorney Alan Jackson also spent time during his closing argument slamming Siebel Newsom, insisting that the former actress had “given the performance of a lifetime. Acting, yes, very much acting, like she’s a victim rather than a participant.”

“It was a theatrical, overly dramatized performance. What you saw was an act. A pretty good act. But it had no basis in truth,” Jackson added about her time on the stand. “It was almost like it was on cue, it was almost like it was rehearsed. Just because she cried the hardest or yelled the loudest, it does not change any of the facts.”

But after just hours of deliberation, the 12-person jury suggested that slamming women who accuse powerful men of sexual assault just doesn’t work the way it once did—if it ever did at all.

“A conviction in LA just reaffirms what women have been saying about Harvey Weinstein for years: that he is a rapist,” Dawn Dunning, who testified in the New York trial about the topped titan assaulting her, told The Daily Beast prior to the verdict.