Harvey Weinstein Sentenced to an Additional 16 Years in Prison

On Thursday, a Los Angeles judge sentenced disgraced former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein to 16 more years in prison. In December, he was convicted on three counts of rape and sexual assault. Separately, the 70-year-old is already serving a 23-year sentence in New York for rape and sexual assault, implying that Weinstein will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.

This second sentence was ordered to be served consecutively by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench, which means it will begin after Weinstein completes his 23-year sentence in New York.

During the Los Angeles trial, the woman whose testimony was the basis for his conviction was referred to as “Jane Doe #1.” The woman is a European model who Weinstein raped in February 2013 during a film festival in Los Angeles.

The former producer, once one of Hollywood’s most powerful men, was brought to trial in California on seven counts of rape and sexual assault involving four women between 2004 and 2013. The jury found him not guilty of one charge and deadlocked on three others.

Weinstein was initially charged with eleven counts of rape and sexual assault in Los Angeles; by the time he went on trial, prosecutors had dropped four of those charges, four of which were related to a woman identified in the case as “Jane Doe #5” because the state was “unable to proceed” with her allegations.

Allegations made by dozens of women against Weinstein, including those published in The New York Times and The New Yorker in October 2017, were a driving force behind the #MeToo movement. Weinstein compared the #MeToo movement and his situation to the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s, when Hollywood professionals were blacklisted for their perceived support of communism, during his sentencing in New York in March 2020.

Harvey Weinstein Found Guilty in 3 Cases of Rape

Harvey Weinstein Found Guilty in 3 Cases of Rape and Sexual Assault