Harvey Weinstein, the former Hollywood titan turned twice-convicted rapist, was sentenced on Thursday to 16 years in prison, effectively putting him behind bars for the rest of his life.
Weinstein, 70, was convicted in December of forcible oral copulation, sexual penetration by a foreign object, and forcible rape for sexually assaulting an Italian model at a Los Angeles hotel in February 2013. The Los Angeles Superior Court jury, however, could not decide on three other charges against Weinstein after 10 days of deliberation—and acquitted him of sexual battery by restraint.
“Ten years later, the effects of this rape are still raw and difficult to discuss. I have been carrying this weight, this trauma. This irrational belief that it was my fault,” the model, identified in court as Jane Doe 1, told the Los Angeles Superior courtroom at his sentencing. “There is no prison sentence long enough to undo the damage. I hope that you give him the maximum sentence allowable.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Weinstein also spoke at the hearing, begging the judge to go easy him and calling it all “a setup.”
“This is about money and coming after me,” he insisted. “Please don’t sentence me to life in prison. I don’t deserve it.”
Thursday’s sentencing marks the second time Weinstein had been handed a prison sentence in connection with a sex-crimes trial—and affirms that he will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. While the nearly blind, disgraced producer was sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape in the third degree and a criminal sex act in the first degree in his New York case, an appeals court in August has allowed him to appeal his conviction there.
The defense had asked for a shorter sentence in the L.A. case, noting the amount of time that Weinstein faces in New York and his declining health. Weinstein will serve the Los Angeles sentence consecutively at the end of his stint behind bars in New York.
The L.A. sentencing also marks the latest legal win for the dozens of women who have come out against Weinstein since the #MeToo movement gained massive momentum in 2017, helping spur a global reckoning against sexual predators of all stripes.
“There is a heaviness in my heart and a deep sadness. But there is also a feeling of vindication. The sentencing makes it real, all of it,” Caitlin Dulany, an actress who accused Weinstein of sexual harassment and assault in the mid-1990s and was not part of the L.A. trial, told The Daily Beast prior to Thursday’s hearing. “The crimes, the years of silence and the speaking out. With the sentencing, we can experience some measure of justice for what we all endured, as victims and as survivors.”
Throughout Weinstein’s Los Angeles trial, prosecutors alleged that he engaged in a pattern of predatory behavior, using his power in Hollywood to sexually assault four women between 2003 and 2014. Among them was Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who testified she was raped in 2005.
Siebel Newsom was one of eight women who took the stand for the prosecution, all describing how Weinstein lured them into private rooms under the pretense of career development before assaulting them. Afterward, they explained to jurors, they stayed silent for years out of fear of Weinstein ruining their budding professions in Hollywood.
“Today justice has been served," Elizabeth Fegan, the attorney who represented Siebel Newsom and another witness in the trial, said in a statement after the sentencing.
“In delivering a 16-year sentence, Judge Lisa Lench has ensured that Harvey Weinstein will spend the rest of his life behind bars. It can’t erase the trauma they’ve endured, but it can serve as catalyst for change and provide hope to other survivors.”
To prove Weinstein’s pattern of behavior, prosecutors asked several women to describe Weinstein’s genitalia to the jury; a 1999 surgery left the producer with severe scarring, and jurors were shown several photographs of Weinstein’s genitals.
Prior to Thursday’s sentencing, Judge Lisa Lench ordered that only Jane Doe 1 would be allowed to give a victim impact statement because she is the only one whose allegations yielded convictions. Prosecutors fought the decision, urging Lench to at least allow attorney Gloria Allred—who is representing three Weinstein accusers—to speak in court as they argued for a minimum 18-year prison sentence.
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 that she had a “very uneasy feeling, a guttural nervousness” ahead of Thursday’s sentencing in a case that has taken up five years of her life.
“I pray the judge does the right thing and sentences Harvey Weinstein to enough time that he lives his last breath behind bars,” Geiss said. “I think it’s beyond fair that he gets sentenced harshly as he put all of us in an emotional prison for years. We finally broke free so we could protect other women and men and see justice served. You f-ed with the wrong girls and women, Weinstein. This I know for sure.”
In the end, the jurors could not come to a conclusion about the charges related to Siebel Newsom’s allegations, prompting the judge to declare a mistrial for those two counts. The jurors also deadlocked on a charge related to an actress who said Weinstein sexually assaulted her in a bathroom in 2013.
Since the verdict, Weinstein’s defense team has filed a motion asking for a new trial, alleging that evidence was withheld during the trial and that the L.A. jury was improperly instructed before deliberations.
