The former film producer Harvey Weinstein He has been found guilty of three of the seven charges he was charged with – rape, forced oral copulation and another count of sexual misconduct with a woman. In his trial in Los Angeles (California), this Monday the jury has declared null and void some of the charges due to the impossibility of carrying out a verdict.
The jury has thrown out several cases by disagreeing despite having “irrefutable and overwhelming evidence about the nature of this man“. These have been denied, on some occasions, by Weinstein’s defense and on others they have been classified as consensual sexual encounters.
The founder of the Miramax production company has been acquitted of one of the other four charges of which he was accused. Faced with the impossibility of the jury –made up of eight men and four women– to carry out a verdict, they have pleaded void the remaining three charges.
This trial has been based on the accusations of four women who suffered sexual violence by the magnate of hollywood between 2005 and 2013. Among these cases is that of jennifer siebel newsomdocumentary filmmaker and wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom.
In the case of Newsom, one of the most anticipated testimonies, the documentary filmmaker has explained throughout the judicial process how she met the producer at a party in 2005. Something similar happened with Lauren Youngthe only woman who has testified in the two trials against Harvey Weinstein –the one of NY and the one of The Angels–, who has related how the producer locked him in a bathroom to grope her and masturbate in front of her.
23 years sentence in New York
In February 2020, Weinstein was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison after the jury found him guilty of a criminal sexual act in the first degree against the production assistant Miriam ‘Mimi’ Haleyin 2006, and third-degree rape, which does not require the use of force, against the aspiring actress jessica mannin 2013. However, in this trial the first degree rape of the latter was ruled out and the two charges that included the rape of the actress annabella sciorra almost 30 years ago.
The New York conviction marked a triumph for the #MeToo movement. Since then, the former producer has been held in the Twin Towers prison in downtown Los Angeles, after being extradited from New York in July 2021.
