American entertainment mogul, Harvey Weinstein was sentenced on Thursday, February 23 to 16 years in prison for the rape of a woman in a Beverly Hills hotel room a decade ago.
The sentence was handed down by a Los Angeles court. Weinstein is already serving a 23-year sentence for his separate 2020 conviction in New York for sex crimes.
It increases the likelihood that the Academy Award-winning “Shakespeare in Love” producer, 70, will spend the remainder of his life in prison — though he is appealing in both cases.
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In December, he was convicted by a Los Angeles jury of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by a foreign object of a European actress whose identity was not revealed.
The court heard explicit accounts of meetings between the previously influential movie producer and several young women who were attempting to find a foothold in Hollywood.
Prosecutors said Weinstein exploited and abused women for years, and long enjoyed impunity because of his then-powerful position in the industry.
The women would have risked losing their future Hollywood job prospects if they had publicly accused Weinstein at the time, prosecutors said.
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Weinstein was ultimately convicted in the Los Angeles case of assaulting one woman, but acquitted of sexual battery involving a second.
The jury did not reach a verdict on charges relating to the alleged assaults of two other women, one of whom was identified by her lawyers as Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the now-wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Weinstein’s lawyers had filed a defense motion requesting either a new trial or a reduced verdict, alleging they were precluded from admitting important evidence about the rape victim — including Facebook messages with an alleged lover which the judge deemed irrelevant — and that their cross-examination was limited.
But Judge Lisa Lench denied the motion, and sentencing went ahead.
AFP
