Shifts: After a months-long trial and nine days of deliberations, Los Angeles jurors on Monday found Harvey Weinstein guilty of rape and sexual assault, just one of four accusers who have accused him of abusing him I went. But the three convictions involving an Italian actor and model known in the trial as Jane Doe 1 still deal a major blow against the disgraced movie mogul, and another five years after he became a magnet for the movement # MeToo moment provided.
Weinstein, who is two years into a 23-year sentence for a rape and sexual assault conviction in New York that is under appeal, could face up to 24 years in prison in California when he is sentenced. He was found guilty of rape, forcible oral sex and another sexual misconduct involving a woman who said he showed up uninvited at her hotel room door during a Los Angeles film festival in 2013.
“Harvey Weinstein destroyed a part of me forever that night in 2013 and I will never get that back. The criminal trial was brutal and Weinstein’s lawyers put me through hell as a witness, but I knew I have to see it through to the end, and I did,” the woman said in a statement after the verdict. “I hope Weinstein never sees outside a prison cell in his lifetime.”
Weinstein was acquitted of a charge of sexual battery made by a massage therapist who treated him at a hotel in 2010. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the two defendants, specifically the rape and sexual assault charges, which involved Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker. and Gavin Newsom, wife of California Gov. A mistrial was declared in those cases.
Weinstein looked down at the table and put his face in his hands as the preliminary guilty counts were read. He was looking ahead as the rest of the judgment was being read out. Prosecutors and defense attorneys had no immediate comment on the verdict. “Harvey Weinstein will never be able to rape another woman again. He will spend the rest of his life behind bars where he belongs,” Siebel Newsom said in a statement.
“Throughout the trial, Weinstein’s attorneys used sexism, misogyny, and intimidation tactics to intimidate, belittle, and ridicule us survivors. The trial was a stark reminder that we have work to do as a society,” said Seibel Newsom’s intense and dramatic testimony, in which she described being raped by Weinstein in a hotel room in 2005. brought in its most dramatic moments. But only eight of the 12 jurors agreed to convict Weinstein on those counts.
Jurors were swayed 10-2 on a sexual battery count involving Lauren Young, the only accuser who testified in both Weinstein trials. She said she was a model aspiring to become an actor and screenwriter who was meeting Weinstein about a script in 2013 when he trapped her in a hotel bathroom, groped her and masturbated in front of her.
In the absence of any forensic evidence or eyewitnesses to the years-old allegations, the case rested heavily on the stories and credibility of the four women at the center of the allegations. The women’s stories echo allegations of dozens of others that have come to light since Weinstein became a #MeToo lightning rod, beginning with New York Times stories in 2017. A film ‘She Said’ about that reporting was released during the trial, and featured jurors. Warned not to watch again and again. It was the defense that made #MeToo an issue during the trial, however, insisting that none of the four women went to the authorities until the movement targeted Weinstein.
Defense attorneys said that two of the women who will be found guilty of rape completely lied about their encounters with Weinstein. He said that the other two had 100% consensual sex which he later redefined. Defense attorneys said during the trial that if Siebel Newsom had not risen to prominence later, she would be “just another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood.”
In his closing argument, Weinstein’s attorney Alan Jackson said, “There is no such thing as regret, rape.” He urged jurors to look past the women’s emotional testimony and focus on the factual evidence. “Believe us because we’re crazy, believe us because we cried,” Jackson said as jurors were being asked to do so. “Well, fury doesn’t make facts. And the tears are not true.
All the women involved in the allegations went to court by Jane Doe. The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly or agree to be named through their attorneys, as The women named here did. Prosecutors called 40 other witnesses in an effort to provide context and corroborate those stories. There were four other women who were not part of the allegations but testified that Weinstein raped or sexually assaulted them. He was brought to the stand to establish a pattern of sexual victimization. Weinstein dropped four other felony charges before the trial ended after prosecutors said a woman accused of rape twice and sexual assault twice would not appear to testify.