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Key Points
- Harvey Weinstein is facing a retrial after a state appeals court overturned his 2020 sex crimes conviction last year.
- He has been found guilty on one charge in the retrial, but the jury has not yet reached a verdict on all counts.
- Weinstein has separately been sentenced to 16 years in prison following a rape conviction in California.
Disgraced Hollywood titan Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of one sexual assault at his retrial and not guilty of another, with jurors still considering a rape charge after hearing graphic testimony from his alleged victims.
Weinstein was retried for offences against two women, Jessica Mann whom he is alleged to have raped, and Miriam Haley whom he was found to have sexually assaulted, alongside new charges of assaulting ex-model Kaja Sokola.
He was found not guilty of those new charges at the tense proceeding in a Manhattan court on Wednesday.
Delivering the verdict of the seven women and five men of the jury on the Haley count, the foreman said: “Guilty.”
He shook his head when he was asked for a verdict on the rape of Mann, and said “not guilty” on the Sokola count.
Weinstein looked on impassively, seated in a wheelchair and wearing a dark suit as he has done throughout the six weeks of hearings.
Harvey Weinstein (shown in 2024) has denied all accusations against him. Source: Getty / Pool / Kena Betancur
But later, the 73-year-old appeared to mutter “not true” as he was wheeled out of court.
‘Today’s verdict gives me hope’
Following the verdict, Haley told reporters that the defence’s “victim shaming and deliberate attempts to distort the truth was exhausting and at times dehumanising”.
“But today’s verdict gives me hope, hope that there is new awareness around sexual violence and that the myth of the ‘perfect victim’ is fading.”
The verdicts came after a dramatic morning in which tensions in the jury deliberation room spilled into the open.
The foreman had told the judge Curtis Farber he could not continue after facing threats.
“One other juror made comments to the effect ‘I’ll meet you outside one day’,” the judge said, quoting the foreman, adding there was yelling between jurors.
After Weinstein’s lawyer Arthur Aidala heatedly demanded a mistrial over the jury rupture, Weinstein himself addressed the court, deploying a commanding voice reminiscent of the heyday of his Hollywood power.
“We’ve heard threats, violence, intimidation — this is not right for me … the person who is on trial here,” he said.
“My lawyers, the district attorney’s lawyers can fight all they want, [but] this is my life that’s on the line and it’s not fair.”
“It’s time, it’s time, it’s time, your honour, to say this trial is over,” Weinstein added.
The judge responded that while unusual, disputes between jurors were not unheard of, before pressing on to hear the jury’s partial verdict.
The Oscar-winner’s conviction is a vindication for Haley, whose complaint in part led to the initial guilty verdict in 2020, and helped spur the #MeToo movement, which led to several allegations from prominent women who were abused by men.
Weinstein underwent a spectacular fall from his position astride the world of Hollywood and show business in 2017 when the first allegations against him exploded into public view.
The movement upended the film industry, exposing the systemic exploitation of young women seeking to work in entertainment, and provoking a reckoning on how to end the toxic culture.
More than 80 women accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct in the wake of the global backlash against men abusing positions of power.
Weinstein already serving 16-year prison sentence
Weinstein’s original 2020 conviction, and the resulting 23-year prison term, was thrown out last year after an appeals court found irregularities in the way witnesses were presented.
It said the trial judge erred by letting women testify that Weinstein had assaulted them, although their accusations were not the basis of the criminal charges.
Any sentence will be in addition to the 16-year term Winstein is already serving after being convicted in California of raping a European actress over a decade ago.
Weinstein, the producer of box office hits like Pulp Fiction and Shakespeare in Love, did not take the stand during his retrial, but did acknowledge in an interview that he acted “immorally”.
