Jury Finds Harvey Weinstein Guilty on Three Rape, Sexual Assault Charges in Los Angeles Trial
Christian Zilko
After 10 days of deliberation, the jury has finally reached a verdict in Harvey Weinstein’s Los Angeles trial. He is guilty of three counts of rape and sexual assault.
He was found guilty of raping an Italian model, identified as Jane Doe #1, at Mr. C hotel in February 2013. He was acquitted on another charge of sexual battery, and the jury was unable to reach unanimous decisions on one charge of rape and one charge of sexual battery.
Weinstein was facing trial for a total of seven charges: two counts of rape and five counts of sexual assault. Each charge was tried separately, with the jury forced to deliberate each allegation individually. He has acquitted on one of these charges, and the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on three of the others.
If convicted on all charges, Weinstein would have faced a total of 60 additional years in prison. The 70-year-old, who is confined to a wheelchair and suffers from a variety of health problems, is already serving a 23-year sentence for his rape convictions in New York. Since June 2021, he has been held at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Downtown Los Angeles following an extradition from New York ahead of his second trial.
Before Weinstein was outed as a serial sexual abuser in October 2017, the founder of Miramax (and later The Weinstein Company) was viewed as one of the kings of Hollywood, an independent film mogul with a unique knack for sniffing out award season contenders from the film festival circuit and guiding the careers of some of the industry’s boldest young filmmakers. He won one Academy Award and seven Tonys over the course of his lengthy career as a film and theatre producer and was credited with ushering directors like Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino to the apex of Hollywood.
But he was just as famous for his infamous temper tantrums and unbridled rage towards anyone he perceived as getting in his way. He gained a reputation as one of the most difficult Hollywood figures to work with, and the film industry quickly turned its back on him once it was no longer seen as a professional necessity to deal with him. His defining legacy is the lives and careers left damaged in his wake. Now, with this rapist having received justice, perhaps healing can begin.
