Former Hollywood film mogul Harvey Weinstein was sentenced in a Manhattan criminal courtroom Wednesday to 23 years for sexually assaulting a former assistant and raping an aspiring young actress.
The lengthy term means Weinstein, 67, will likely die in prison.
A jury of five women and seven men last month found the movie producer guilty of raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013. They also found him guilty of forcibly performing oral sex on TV and film production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006, against her will.
In the short sentencing hearing in New York, Weinstein was wheeled into the courtroom in a wheelchair.
“We thank the court for imposing a sentence that puts sexual predators and abusive partners in all segments of society on notice,” District Attorney CY Vance said in a statement.
“We thank the survivors for their remarkable statements today and indescribable courage over the last two years. Harvey Weinstein deployed nothing less than an army of spies to keep them silent. But they refused to be silent, and they were heard. Their words took down a predator and put him behind bars, and gave hope to survivors of sexual violence all across the world,” Vance’s statement went on to say.
Before his sentencing Wednesday, Weinstein tried to plead with the court. “I have great remorse for all of you,” he said for the first time. “I have great remorse for all women.”
“It takes a very special kind of evil to exploit connections to leverage rape,” the 2013 rape accuser said, according to the Associated Press.
“Rape is not just one moment of penetration. It is forever,” added the woman, who recalled a moment during the trial when she left the witness stand in tears and then could be heard screaming from an adjacent room.
“The day my screams were heard from the witness room was the day my voice came back to its full power,” she said.
Asked later about her reaction after the sentence, she wiped her eyes, raised her arm and nodded her head.
Weinstein, who claimed all sexual activity was consensual, showed no reaction to the sentence. “Beforehand, he broke his courtroom silence with a rambling plea for mercy in which he said his “empathy has grown” since his downfall,” the AP said.
He told the court he felt “remorse for this situation” but said he was perplexed by the case and the #MeToo climate in which it unfolded. “Thousands of men are losing due process. I’m worried about this country,” he said, arguing that men are being accused of “things that none of us understood.”
“I’m totally confused. I think men are confused about these issues,” he said in a calm but creaking voice, adding that he had fond memories of his accusers.
Looking back during the trial at emails they exchanged, he said, he thought they had a good friendship: “I had wonderful times with these people.”
