Harvey Weinstein has been sentenced to 23 years in prison, after being found guilty of a criminal sex act, and rape in the third degree involving two different women.
The disgraced producer was told of his sentence by judge James Burke at the New York supreme court. Burke was encouraged by prosecutors to deliver a lengthy sentencing given Weinstein’s “lifetime of abuse”. Chief prosecutor, Joan Illuzzi-Orbon said that former film mogul had “consistently advanced his own sordid desires and fixations over the wellbeing of others”, and should be punished accordingly.
Weinstein addressed the court for the first time today, 11 March, saying he has “deep remorse”, but was “totally confused” by the way in which the two survivors had described their relationships with him.
His former assistant, Miriam Haley, said in her victim statement that Weinstein “not only stripped me of my dignity as a human being and as a woman… it diminished my confidence and faith in myself”. She concluded: “It is time people who rape other people pay with their life and the life they took.”
If the maximum sentences of the two convictions were combined, the most severe punishment Weinstein could have been given was 29 years in prison.
The Guardian reports that Weinstein will now be taken to a prison in upstate New York, where he will undertake the standard reception procedure, which will include a shower and delousing treatment. He will then watch a suicide prevention video – a part of the process that is expected to be carefully monitored given the suicide of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein which took place in a Manhattan prison in August 2019.
Now the sentencing is over, Weinstein is in a position to file appeals against either the sentence or conviction, or both. The producer still faces four charges relating to sexual assault in LA.
From Harper’s Bazaar UK
