Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison today in Los Angeles, following his conviction several months ago on several counts of rape and sexual assault. In 2020, Weinstein was convicted of a criminal sexual act in the first degree and rape in the third degree and sentenced to 23 years in a separate case in New York.
Weinstein was convicted in December of last year on three counts: sexual penetration by a foreign object, forcible oral copulation, and forcible rape. The charges all came from an incident involving a single woman, who claimed that Weinstein had assaulted her in 2013 at a Los Angeles hotel. The same jury acquitted Weinstein of sexual battery involving another woman; a mistrial was declared on several additional charges involving other women. It is not yet clear whether Weinstein will be retried on those charges.
Weinstein is 70 years old, and his sentences are to be served consecutively, not simultaneously, meaning between his convictions in New York and Los Angeles, he will likely spend the rest of his life in jail. (The New York Court of Appeals has agreed to hear an appeal in Weinstein’s 2020 conviction.)
Weinstein’s lawyers had requested a new trial in the Los Angeles case, but the judge in the case denied his request today. In a statement to the court before the sentence was read, Weinstein said “I maintain that I am innocent. I don’t know this woman,” and claimed that the trial was “a set up” and “there are so many things wrong with this case.”
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