Harvey Weinstein sentenced to 16 years for sexual assault in California

LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Calif. — Disgraced former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was sentenced Thursday to serve 16 years in prison after he was convicted last year of sexually assaulting a woman in California, according to multiple reports.

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Weinstein, 70, faced a maximum sentence of 18 years in prison, The Associated Press reported. He is already serving a 23-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2020 of rape and committing a criminal sex act in New York City.

Update 2:40 p.m. EST Feb. 23: Weinstein was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting a woman in February 2013. The woman, an Italian actor and model referred to in court as Jane Doe 1, said in court Thursday that the attack changed her entire life, the AP reported.

“Before that night I was a very happy and confident woman. I valued myself and the relationship I had with God,” the woman said, according to the AP. “I was excited about my future. Everything changed after the defendant brutally assaulted me. There is no prison sentence long enough to undo the damage.”

She later cried as Weinstein denied having attacked her, telling Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa B. Lench, “I maintain that I’m innocent. I never raped or sexually assaulted Jane Doe 1,” the AP reported.

Weinstein was sentenced to serve 16 years. He is already serving a 23-year sentence for similar charges out of New York.

Updated 2:35 p.m. EST Feb. 23: At a sentencing hearing Thursday in downtown Los Angeles, a judge sentenced Weinstein to serve 16 years in prison, Variety reported.

The sentence all but ensures that Weinstein will spend the rest of his life in prison, according to Variety.

Original report: Los Angeles County jurors deliberated for 10 days in December before finding Weinstein guilty of one count of forcible rape, one count of forced oral copulation and one count of sexual penetration by a foreign object. The assault happened in February 2013, officials said.

The victim — a former model and actress identified in court as Jane Doe 1 — said in a statement after the verdict came down that Weinstein “forever destroyed a part of me that night in 2013 and I will never get that back,” Reuters reported.

“I hope Weinstein never sees the outside of a prison cell during his lifetime,” she said in the statement.

Weinstein had also been charged with raping or sexually assaulting three other women in California. Jurors deadlocked on three counts related to two other women and acquitted him on a charge related to the third, according to Variety.

Sexual abuse allegations surfaced against Weinstein in 2017, sparking what turned into the #MeToo movement.

Dozens of women have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct. He also faces indecent assault charges in London related to an alleged assault that happened in August 1996.

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