Language Settings
Select Website Language

GDPR Compliance

We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. By continuing to use our site, you accept our use of cookies, Privacy Policy, and Terms of Service.

Harvey Weinstein Handed 15-Year Sentence in Assault Case

1 hour ago

4

0

A New York judge sentenced Harvey Weinstein to 15 years for a criminal sexual act against ex-assistant Miriam Haley, after a retrial reconviction.

Harvey Weinstein has been ordered to serve 15 years behind bars after a New York jury last year found him guilty of committing a criminal sexual act against a woman who once worked as his assistant. Judge Curtis Farber delivered the sentence on Wednesday, telling the former film producer he had refused to answer for his conduct. "You took what you wanted by force and you have never accepted responsibility," the judge said.

The case centred on Miriam Haley, who addressed the courtroom directly. In her victim-impact statement, she said the attack had left a "devastating effect on my life and sense of security that may never go away." Weinstein, 74, attended the hearing in a wheelchair. He rejected the accusations against him but offered an apology to "anyone I may have hurt by my actions."

This marks the second time Weinstein has been sentenced over the same allegation. He was first found guilty and punished in 2020, but New York's top court threw out that conviction in 2024, ruling that he had not received a fair trial. The same decision also cancelled a separate conviction tied to actress Jessica Mann. Prosecutors put Weinstein on trial again, and jurors convicted him last year on a single count of a criminal sexual act involving Haley.

Haley first gave evidence during the 2020 proceedings, telling the court that Weinstein had assaulted her in a bedroom of his Manhattan apartment in 2006. At the time, she was working as a production assistant on the television programme Project Runway. She returned to the witness stand for the retrial, later explaining that she felt she had no choice. "I just thought, I have to stand up for myself. I have to stand up for the truth," she said.

The outcome of the retrial was mixed for prosecutors. While the jury convicted Weinstein over Haley, it could not agree on a verdict in the charges connected to Mann. He was cleared of a separate accusation brought by model Kaja Sokola.

Weinstein has now faced three trials in New York over allegations of rape and abuse, and he has already spent several years in custody in the state. He is being held in a prison ward at Bellevue Hospital in New York, where he is being treated for a number of health problems that have emerged during his imprisonment.

His legal troubles extend beyond New York. In a separate case in Los Angeles, a jury convicted him in 2022 of raping and sexually assaulting an actress in a hotel room in 2013. He has yet to be sentenced in that matter. An appeals court directed that he be re-sentenced there after the New York convictions were reversed.

Weinstein rose to prominence as the driving force behind Miramax, the studio responsible for successes such as Shakespeare in Love. His standing collapsed in 2017, when the New York Times and the New Yorker published accounts from numerous women who accused him of sexual assault dating back decades. Those reports helped ignite the #MeToo movement, which encouraged people to speak publicly about sexual misconduct.

Throughout the years of litigation, Weinstein has maintained his innocence and has said he expects to be cleared. Prosecutors, meanwhile, have had to work through repeated setbacks and reversals to secure and preserve convictions against him.Harvey Weinstein, Miriam Haley, sexual assault sentence, MeToo movement, Miramax, New York trial, Judge Curtis Farber, Weinstein retrial

Click here to Read More
Previous Article
Warner Bros Moves 'Dynamic Duo' and Untitled 'Gremlins' to Fall 2028
Next Article
US Cancels 315,000 Obamacare Plans, Citing Fraud

Related World Updates:

Are you sure? You want to delete this comment..! Remove Cancel

Comments (0)

    Leave a comment