Harvey Weinstein Found Guilty on 3 Counts, Including Rape; Jury Hung on Other Charges

The verdict concludes a gut-wrenching trial in which Weinstein's lawyers slut-shamed women and forced them to describe his "deformed genitalia" on the stand.

By Audra Heinrichs | December 19, 2022 | 11:55pm

Justice Politics

Harvey Weinstein Found Guilty on 3 Counts, Including Rape; Jury Hung on Other Charges

Photo:Etienne Laurent-Pool (Getty Images)

After nine days of deliberation, the jury in Harvey Weinstein’s second sex abuse trial reached a verdict Monday night: The producer was found guilty of three counts of rape and sexual assault, including forced oral copulation, against Jane Doe 1. He was acquitted of one count of sexual battery against Jane Doe 3, and the jury was hung on all three counts related to Jane Doe 2 and Jennifer Siebel Newsom. James Queally of the Los Angeles Times reported that Weinstein “did not audibly react,” but he “folded his hands and pressed them to his head as the guilty verdicts were read.”

“Harvey Weinstein will never be able to rape another woman. He will spend the rest of his life behind bars where he belongs,” Siebel Newsom said in a statement after the verdict. “Throughout the trial, Weinstein’s lawyers used sexism, misogyny, and bullying tactics to intimidate, demean, and ridicule us survivors. The trial was a stark reminder that we as a society have work to do.”

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At the start of the trial in October, the convicted sexual predator and face of the #MeToo movement faced 11 charges of sexual assault for alleged incidents involving five women between 2004 to 2013, which included forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, sexual battery by restraint, and sexual penetration by use of force. Four of those charges were later dropped, and he pleaded not guilty to the remaining seven.

The jurors—nine men and three women—heard gut-wrenching, detailed, emotional testimony from nearly 50 witnesses throughout the trial. “You have irrefutable, overwhelming evidence of the nature of this man, and what he did to these women,” Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson told the jurors during closing arguments last week.

Meanwhile, Alan Jackson and Mark Werksman—Weinstein’s team—spent seven weeks aggressively—in some cases, cruelly—countering all claims via predictable and tired tactics like slut-shaming, victim-blaming, and forcing them to describe their client’s “deformed genitalia.” They took specific aim at Siebel Newsom (publicly identified as Jane Doe 4), documentary filmmaker and the First Lady of California, asking her to fake an orgasm on the stand and putting her through undeniably callous questioning.

In February 2020, Weinstein was convicted on one count of committing a criminal sexual act in the first degree and one count of rape in the third degree and sentenced to 23 years in prison—which the 70-year-old began serving in March 2020. Weinstein, who’s currently in custody, did not testify in his own defense in Los Angeles. His sentencing is scheduled for early 2023—but he won’t be able to begin serving his sentence in California until he’s completed his sentence in New York.