Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has been found guilty of rape at a Los Angeles trial in another #MeToo moment of reckoning, five years after he became a magnet for the movement.
After deliberating for nine days spanning more than two weeks, the jury of eight men and four women on Monday reached the verdict at the second criminal trial of the 70-year-old who is two years into a 23-year sentence for a rape and sexual assault conviction in New York.
Weinstein was found guilty of rape, forced oral copulation and another sexual misconduct count involving a woman known as Jane Doe 1. The jury hung on several counts, notably charges involving Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom.
The jury reported it was unable to reach verdicts in her allegations and the allegations of another woman. A mistrial was declared on those counts.
He was also acquitted of a sexual battery allegation made by another woman.
He faces up to 24 years in prison when he is sentenced. Prosecutors and defence lawyers had no immediate comment on the verdict.
Lacking any forensic evidence or eyewitness accounts of assaults Weinstein’s accusers said happened from 2005 to 2013, the case hinged heavily on the stories and credibility of the four women at the centre of the charges.
The women’s stories echoed the allegations of dozens of others who have emerged since Weinstein became a #MeToo lightning rod starting with stories in the New York Times in 2017.
All the women involved in the charges went by Jane Doe in court. The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly or agree to be named through their lawyers, as the women named here did.
Weinstein beat four other felony charges before the trial even ended when prosecutors said a woman he was charged with raping twice and sexually assaulting twice would not appear to testify. They declined to give a reason. Judge Lisa Lench dismissed those charges.
Weinstein’s latest conviction hands a victory to victims of sexual misconduct of famous men in the wake of some legal setbacks, including the dismissal of Bill Cosby’s conviction last year.
Weinstein’s New York conviction survived an initial appeal, but the case is set to be heard by the state’s highest court next year. The California conviction, also likely to be appealed, means he will not walk free even if the East Coast conviction is thrown out.
