WEINSTEIN’S LANDMARK CONVICTION
HARVEY Weinstein has been convicted of rape and sexual assault against two women, sealing his dizzying fall from powerful Hollywood studio boss to archvillain of the #MeToo movement.
He was convicted on charges stemming from a 2006 sexual assault and a 2013 rape.
The jury found Weinstein not guilty on the most serious charge, predatory sexual assault, that could have resulted in a life sentence.
The most damaging conviction, for the sexual assault of production assistant Mimi Haleyi, would carry a maximum sentence of 25 years.
Weinstein, 67, had a look of resignation as the verdict came in, and was seen talking to his lawyers shortly after.
A judge ordered him to go to jail immediately.
Court officers surrounded Weinstein, handcuffed him and led him out of the courtroom.
The judge said he will request that Weinstein be held in the infirmary after his lawyers said he needs medical attention following an unsuccessful back surgery.
The verdict followed weeks of often harrowing and excruciatingly graphic testimony from a string of accusers.
The conviction was seen as a longoverdue reckoning for Weinstein after years of whispers about his behaviour turned into a torrent of accusations in 2017 that destroyed his career and gave rise to #MeToo, the global movement to encourage women to come forward and hold powerful men accountable for their sexual misconduct.
The jury of seven men and five women took five days to find him guilty.
The case against the producer was essentially built on three allegations – that he raped an aspiring actress in a New York City hotel room in 2013, that he forcibly performed oral sex on Ms Haleyi and that he raped and forcibly performed oral sex on Sopranos actress Annabella Sciorra in her apartment in the mid-1990s.
Three additional women who said they, too, were attacked by Weinstein also testified as part of an effort by prosecutors to show a pattern of brutish behaviour on his part.
The defence seized on the fact that two of the women central to the case stayed in contact with Weinstein through warm and even flirty emails– and had sex with him – well after he supposedly attacked them.
Weinstein now faces charges in Los Angeles.