Disgraced Hollywood producer, Harvey Weinstein has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for a r@pe conviction in Los Angeles, adding to a more than two-decade-long sentence already handed down in New York.
Weinstein, 70, was convicted in the Los Angeles case in December, three years after he was convicted at a s€x crimes trial in New York City. Weinstein’s new sentence will run consecutively with the 23-year term given to him in his New York trial, giving him a total of 39 years behind bars in s€x crimes convictions.
In the Los Angeles case, a jury found Weinstein guilty of three counts related to the accuser known as Jane Doe 1: forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and s€xual penetration by foreign object.
The jury found him not guilty of s€xual battery by restraint involving a second accuser, identified as Jane Doe 2, and was unable to reach verdicts on allegations involving Jane Doe 3 and Jane Doe 4.
Attorney Gloria Allred filed a motion with the court Tuesday on behalf of three women after a judge refused to allow them to read victim impact statements at the sentencing. Allred’s motion says the decision violates the women’s rights under Marsy’s Law, which gives the right to those who suffer direct or threatened harm by a crime.
The judge declined to push the sentencing to hear Allred’s appeal, but Jane Doe 1 was permitted to offer a statement to the court before the judge’s sentencing decision.
“I was excited about my future,” she told the court, crying as she spoke. “Everything changed after the defendant brutally assaulted me. … I soon became invisible to myself and to the world. I lost my identity. I was heartbroken, empty, and alone.”
Weinstein could have faced up to 24 years in the Los Angeles case, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón has said.
His legal team filed an appeal requesting a new trial, alleging that evidence was excluded about a romantic relationship between Jane Doe 1 and a witness that could have altered the jury’s decision.
