Harvey Weinstein has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of committing a criminal sexual act against a former assistant, Miriam Haley. In a victim-impact statement, Haley described the assault as having a "devastating effect on my life and sense of security that may never go away." Weinstein, who appeared in court in a wheelchair, denied the allegations but apologized to "anyone I may have hurt by my actions."
Weinstein has already spent several years in jail in New York, facing three trials related to rape and abuse allegations. He was previously convicted in a separate sex-crime case in Los Angeles. This is the second prison sentence he has received in the Miriam Haley case; he was first convicted and sentenced in 2020, but New York's highest court overturned that conviction in 2024, ruling that he did not receive a fair trial. He was retried and convicted again last year on a single charge of a criminal sexual act against Haley.
Currently, Weinstein, 74, is being held in a prison ward at New York's Bellevue Hospital due to reported health issues. Once a prominent producer behind Miramax, Weinstein's career ended in 2017 following allegations of sexual assault from multiple women, which contributed to the emergence of the #MeToo movement.
In the 2020 trial, Haley testified that Weinstein assaulted her in his Manhattan apartment in 2006 while she was working as a production assistant on the Project Runway television series. In related charges involving actress Jessica Mann, juries were unable to reach a verdict, and Weinstein was found not guilty in another charge involving model Kaja Sokola.
After testifying in the retrial last year, Haley expressed her determination to stand up for herself and the truth. Weinstein is also awaiting sentencing in California, where he was convicted in 2022 of raping and sexually assaulting an actress in a hotel room in 2013. An appeals court has ordered him to be re-sentenced in that case following the overturning of his New York convictions. Throughout the proceedings, Weinstein has consistently denied the allegations against him and maintains that he will be proven innocent. Judge Curtis Farber criticized Weinstein during the sentencing announcement, stating, "You took what you wanted by force and you have never accepted responsibility."