LOS ANGELES (AP) — After a month-long trial and 9 days of deliberations, Los Angeles jurors on Monday found Harvey Weinstein guilty of the rape and sexual assault of only one of the 4 accusers he was charged with abusing.
But the three guilty counts involving an Italian actor and mannequin identified on the trial as Jane Doe 1 nonetheless struck a serious blow in opposition to the disgraced film mogul, and offered one other #MeToo second of reckoning, 5 years after he turned a magnet for the motion.
Weinstein, 70, who is 2 years right into a 23-year sentence for a rape and sexual assault conviction in New York that’s underneath enchantment, might rise up to 24 years in jail in California when he is sentenced.
He was found guilty of rape, pressured oral copulation and one other sexual misconduct depend involving the girl who mentioned he appeared uninvited at her resort room door throughout a Los Angeles movie pageant in 2013.
“Harvey Weinstein forever destroyed a part of me that night in 2013 and I will never get that back. The criminal trial was brutal and Weinstein’s lawyers put me through hell on the witness stand, but I knew I had to see this through to the end, and I did,” the girl mentioned in a press release after the decision. “I hope Weinstein never sees the outside of a prison cell during his lifetime.”
Weinstein was acquitted of a sexual battery allegation made by a massage therapist who treated him at a hotel in 2010.
The jury was unable to reach a decision on counts involving two accusers, notably rape and sexual assault charges involving Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. A mistrial was declared on those counts.
Weinstein looked down at the table and appeared to put his face in his hands when the initial guilty counts were read. He looked forward as the rest of the verdict was read.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys had no immediate comment on the verdict.
“Harvey Weinstein will never be able to rape another woman. He will spend the rest of his life behind bars where he belongs,” Siebel Newsom said in a statement. “Throughout the trial, Weinstein’s lawyers used sexism, misogyny, and bullying tactics to intimidate, demean, and ridicule us survivors. The trial was a stark reminder that we as a society have work to do.”
Siebel Newsom’s intense and dramatic testimony, in which she described being raped by Weinstein in a hotel room in 2005, brought the trial its most dramatic moments. But only eight of the 12 jurors agreed to find Weinstein guilty of those counts.
Jurors were deadlocked 10-2 on a sexual battery count involving Lauren Young, the only accuser who testified at both Weinstein trials. She said she was a model aspiring to be an actor and screenwriter who was meeting with Weinstein about a script in 2013 when he trapped her in a hotel bathroom, groped her and masturbated in front of her.
Lacking any forensic evidence or eyewitness accounts of years-old allegations, the case hinged heavily on the stories and credibility of the four women at the center of the charges.
The women’s stories echoed the allegations of dozens of others who have emerged since Weinstein became a #MeToo lightning rod starting with stories in the New York Times in 2017. A movie about that reporting, “She Said,” was released during the trial, and jurors were repeatedly warned not to see it.
It was the defense that made #MeToo an issue during the trial, however, emphasizing that none of the four women went to the authorities until after the movement made Weinstein a target.
Defense lawyers said two of the women — including the one he would be found guilty of raping — were entirely lying about their encounters with Weinstein. They said the other two had “100% consensual” sexual interactions that they later reframed.
Defense attorneys said during the trial that if Siebel Newsom hadn’t reached her later prominence she would be “simply one other bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get forward in Hollywood.”
“Regret is not the same thing as rape,” Weinstein lawyer Alan Jackson mentioned in his closing argument.
He urged jurors to look previous the the ladies’s emotional testimony and deal with the factual proof.
“‘Believe us because we’re mad, believe us because we cried,’” Jackson mentioned jurors have been being requested to do. “Well, fury does not make fact. And tears do not make truth.”
All the ladies concerned in the costs glided by Jane Doe in courtroom. The Associated Press doesn’t sometimes title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused until they arrive ahead publicly or comply with be named by their attorneys, as the ladies named right here did.
Prosecutors known as 40 different witnesses in an try to provide context and corroboration to these tales. Four have been different girls who weren’t half of the costs however testified that Weinstein raped or sexually assaulted them. They have been delivered to the stand to ascertain a sample of sexual predation.
Weinstein beat 4 different felony costs earlier than the trial even ended when prosecutors mentioned a girl he was charged with raping twice and sexually assaulting twice wouldn’t seem to testify. They declined to provide a purpose. Judge Lisa Lench dismissed these costs.
Weinstein’s newest conviction palms a victory to victims of sexual misconduct of well-known males in the wake of some authorized setbacks, together with the dismissal of Bill Cosby’s conviction final 12 months. The rape trial of “That ’70s Show” actor Danny Masterson, held concurrently and simply down the corridor from Weinstein’s, ended in a mistrial. And actor Kevin Spacey was victorious at a sexual battery civil trial in New York final month.
Weinstein’s New York conviction survived an preliminary enchantment, however the case is about to be heard by the state’s highest courtroom subsequent 12 months. The California conviction, additionally prone to be appealed, means he won’t stroll free even when the East Coast conviction is thrown out.
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton
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For extra on the Harvey Weinstein trial, go to: https://apnews.com/hub/harvey-weinstein
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