The one time Hollywood titan Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in jail on Thursday after a jury convicted him of the 2013 rape and sexual assault of an Italian actor and mannequin.
The sentence in a Los Angeles courtroom comes on prime of the greater than 20 years the 70-year-old Weinstein has left to serve for the same 2020 conviction in New York, furthering the autumn of the one time film magnate who turned a #MeToo magnet.
The newest fees stemmed from an assault on a former mannequin and actress, recognized in court docket as Jane Doe 1, at a Los Angeles lodge in February 2013.
Weinstein instantly appealed to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench, saying, “I maintain that I’m innocent. I never raped or sexually assaulted Jane Doe 1.”
The lady who Weinstein was convicted of raping sobbed within the courtroom as he spoke.
Moments earlier, she had advised the choose concerning the ache she felt after being attacked by Weinstein.
“Before that night time I used to be a really joyful and assured lady. I valued myself and the connection I had with God,” the girl, who was recognized in court docket solely as Jane Doe 1, mentioned.
“I used to be enthusiastic about my future. Everything modified after the defendant brutally assaulted me. There isn’t any jail sentence lengthy sufficient to undo the injury,” she mentioned.
Lench handed down the sentence on Thursday after rejecting a movement by Weinstein’s attorneys for a brand new trial. Prosecutors and Weinstein’s attorneys declined remark after the sentencing.
Jurors in December convicted Weinstein of 1 depend of rape and two counts of sexual assault in opposition to the girl, who on the trial’s opening in October gave a dramatic and emotional account of him arriving uninvited at her lodge room, speaking his manner in and assaulting her throughout a movie competition.
The jury spared Weinstein a fair longer sentence once they acquitted him of the sexual battery of a therapeutic massage therapist and failed to succeed in verdicts on counts involving two different girls.
The protection contended through the trial that Weinstein had consensual intercourse with two of the ladies he was charged with assaulting and that two others – together with the one who led to his conviction – had been making up the incidents fully.
Last week, Lench rejected a request from Gloria Allred, an lawyer for a number of the girls who testified at trial, to permit others to make related statements in court docket concerning the man who has for 5 years been a magnet for the #MeToo motion.
“I’m not going to make this an open forum on Mr. Weinstein’s conduct,” Lench mentioned on the time.
The motion inspired girls to talk out about sexual harassment and abuse by highly effective males in media, politics and different endeavors. The motion, which went viral on social media in 2017, seeks to interrupt a tradition of silence that has lengthy allowed such conduct to go unchallenged.
Legal uncertainties will stay on each coasts for Weinstein.
New York’s highest court docket has agreed to listen to his enchantment in his rape and sexual assault convictions there; and prosecutors in Los Angeles have but to say whether or not they are going to retry Weinstein on counts they had been unable to succeed in a verdict on. A listening to on the potential retrial is scheduled for subsequent month.
It isn’t but clear the place he’ll serve his time whereas these points are determined.
His New York sentence can be served earlier than a California jail time period, although a retrial or different points may preserve him from being despatched again there quickly.
Weinstein is eligible for parole in New York in 2039.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
